If this a rom-com, kill the director
by QueenoftheWilderwest
Summary: Hiccup and Astrid are both popular actors. And they hate each other. As luck would have it, they're both cast in a film adaptation of a popular Shakespeare play, and have to face their bad feelings for each other head on. In true Shakespeare fashion, it's going to go wrong before it goes right.
1. Anything But Them

"You know, for someone who does what you do, you really are the least romantic person I've ever met."

Astrid Hofferson, up and coming star and the film industry's new golden girl, clasps a coffee cup in one hand and her phone in the other, resting her bag on her hip. Though her hands are full, she still manages to be somehow together – her posture perfect and her hair braid falling down her shoulder in neat twists. She's picture-perfect perfection, and the cameras have always known it.

She snorts, her eyes flickering up from her phone to glance at her companion. "What do I need romance for?" she says, looking back down to finish her text.

"Well, you'd think that the girl who's starred in so many romantic comedies would have plenty of experience with that. When are you gonna get a boyfriend, dude?" her cousin, Cami, says.

Astrid slips her phone into her bag and quirks an eyebrow at her cousin. "Never thought I see the day that Cami Hofferson was bugging me to get a boyfriend."

"Or a girlfriend then, I don't care, I don't know what you're into. Anything that I can tell the thirsty reporters who keep asking me about it," Cami says. "As if that's the most interesting thing they can get from me."

Astrid gives a hollow laugh. "So _that's_ what this is about."

Cami's walk becomes more of a stomp as they turn a corner and enter a big, grey building. "I did press work for a film I was in this summer and all they could talk about was what I thought about you."

Astrid stops for a moment to talk to the receptionist at the desk, and listen to the directions for the room they want. Once they are alone again, she sucks in a breath in sympathy.

"I'm sorry," she says. "You'll get your big break sometime soon, and then all the reporters will be prying into your love life instead of mine."

Cami grins. "Here's to hoping. I love you Astrid, but I'm _damn_ tired of hearing about you all the time."

They head up a set of stairs. Astrid leans over Cami's ear and whispers "shall we fake a fight?" conspiratorially.

"The press would love that!"

* * *

"Girls! I'm so glad you finally made it!"

Finn Hofferson, Cami's father and Astrid's uncle, opens his arms up wide as the two of them enter his office. In recent years, Finn had become a hugely successful film director, one of the most popular in mainstream film. He was known for being unafraid to delve into controversial topics, and as such had earned the nickname 'Fearless Finn.'

The two slip themselves into chairs in front of Finn's desk. Cami adopts a casual pose, slumping in her seat, because it's her father, for goodness sake. If you can't act casual around family, when can you?

"Well, I'll just get right into it," Finn says, a bright smile across his face. "As you both know, my film company's next project is an adaptation of Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_. I'm thrilled to let you know that Astrid has won the part of Juliet."

Astrid shoots a glance at Cami and watches her expression shift ever so slightly into one of disappointment. The look is gone as soon as it was there, but Astrid saw it.

"I presume Cami has a role too?" she says, glancing back up at her uncle.

"Of course!" Finn says, clapping his hands together. "We'll let her read in for some of the parts and then we'll pick the one she excels at. Now, I'm sure you're dying to know who your Romeo is!"

Astrid nods, chewing on her lips as casting another glance over at Cami, guilt eating away at her stomach.

"Well, I'm sure you're going to be very excited about this, Astrid, because we're giving you the chance to work with possibly the most wanted star this year," he says, sliding a picture over the desk towards them. "Hiccup Haddock."

* * *

The chair Hiccup Haddock sits in is profoundly uncomfortable. It reminds him of the nasty plastic chairs they used to have at school, and he idly thinks to himself that he'd thought he'd got past the stage of nasty uncomfortable chairs when he finished full-time education. Heck, he'd thought he'd got past that stage when he got famous.

He twiddles his thumbs while he waits for his agent to finish talking on the phone.

"Well, Hiccup," the man says, when he's finally finished his conversation. "I've just spoken to the casting director and you've got the part of Romeo."

Hiccup's never really sure what the professional way to respond is when he's told he's won a role, so he just says "wow, that's great," and hopes that he doesn't sound sarcastic. "Who's my Juliet?" he tacks on afterwards, just in case he _did_ sound sarcastic.

His agent smiles. "She's gotten pretty popular over the years. Astrid Hofferson."

All at once Hiccup feels like he's just got an ice-cold bucket of water dumped over his head. "No. Not her."

He grips the handles of his chair and frowns.

"Something wrong, Mr. Haddock?"

"Not her," he says again, glowering at the floor. "I can't work with her."

His agent takes his glasses off and rubs them with a cleaning wipe, something Hiccup's always found to be a threatening gesture.

"Mr. Haddock, may I remind you that refusing this role will reflect badly over your entire career?"

"Yes, but-"

"And refusing a role simply because of your dislike of another actress would be even worse?"

"Yes, but she-"

His agents sends him a firm look. "I suggest you settle whatever quarrel you have with Miss Hofferson and take the role, or you'll find yourself with fewer parts in the future. Do remember this is your job, Mr. Haddock, no matter how famous or privileged you get."

Hiccup sinks back into his seat and holds back a petulant sigh. "Yes, sir," is all he says.

* * *

Cami splutters when she hears the name, and then lets back a full-on laugh. "Oh, this is priceless," she says, unable to keep a grin from her face.

Astrid is still staring at the picture, her mouth open. "No," she says, when her mouth finally remembers how speech works. "Not him."

"Something wrong?" Finn asks, slightly perturbed by the situation.

"They have _history_ ," Cami says in a sing-song voice, pressing a hand over her face to stop the giggles.

Astrid elbows her cousin in the ribs to shut her up, and then looks back towards Finn. "I can't work with him," she pleads. "I can't."

"You've met before? But surely I would have known if you two had worked together before?" Finn says.

"He went to our college," Cami chips in.

Astrid slumps in the chair, forgetting all she's ever been taught about professionalism, folding her arms and pouting.

Finn looks between the two of them and shakes his head. "He's a good actor."

"He's an asshat," Astrid says, refusing to look at Finn.

Finn frowns and pulls himself forward, glaring at Astrid across the desk. "Don't think that because we're family, that you get to talk like that in here. You're a professional actress, Astrid, act like one."

Astrid lets out a huff, but sits up properly.

"Now, I don't know what happened between you and Hiccup Haddock, but you better bury the hatchet for this. This is a big deal, Astrid, this could send your career flying. You'd stop being cast in romantic comedies and get better parts," Finn says.

Astrid glances up and sits up straighter, letting out a sigh. "Okay," she says. "I'll try my best to work with Hiccup."

But when she sees Cami smirking in the corner of her eye, and when she thinks about having to work with Hiccup Haddock, of _all_ people, she wonders whether this whole gig is worth her career at all.


	2. Table Read

"Why did it have to be her, of all people?!" Hiccup groans, his head face down on a table. "Anyone else. It could have been anyone else."

Steven Jorgenson, more commonly known amongst his friends as Snotlout (now _that's_ a story for another time), pats Hiccup on the shoulder in an attempt at sympathy. "She can't be that bad," he says. "She's kinda hot."

Hiccup makes a strangled sound and curls his hands into fists on the table. "Attractiveness doesn't change the fact that she's an insufferable hypocrite that thinks she's so-"

His little mumbled rant is cut off by a cough. His voice trails away as he turns to see none other than Astrid Hofferson, smiling faux-sweetly down at him.

"Hiccup. Charming as ever, I see," she says, dropping into her designated seat which is, unfortunately, right next to his.

"Astrid. Pleasure to see you again," Hiccup replies, sounding as if it was anything but.

It's their first official day working on the _Romeo and Juliet_ production, and first on the agenda is a table read. Hiccup doesn't see why that means he has to sit next her, but he supposes it makes sense. At some point in the near future he's going to have to _kiss_ her and… ugh. He doesn't want to think about that.

More people begin to file in and slowly the room fills up with people that Hiccup doesn't know but will soon become familiar with. As soon as every seat is taken, the director (who Hiccup soon learns is Astrid's uncle) stands, a big smile on his face.

"Well, I won't prolong this with a big speech," he says. "So let's just get right down to it. I'm Finn Hofferson, and I'm the director."

He sits, and then one by one everyone around the table introduces themselves and their role. Hiccup recognizes no one until a large-ish blonde man stands, and with something of a stutter says "I'm Philip Ingerman, but everyone calls me Fishlegs. I wrote the script."

Hiccup and Fishlegs had known each other for quite a while, having met each other in school. They hadn't really had much contact in recent years, but Hiccup's glad to see him again. He flashes the man a smile, who returns it before sitting back down.

More people say their names. He recognizes Astrid's cousin, who stands lazily and introduces herself as Cami, remarking that her real name is Camilla and she'll thump anyone who releases that to the press. Some people shrink back into their seats. From the corner of his eye, he can see Astrid smirking.

Snotlout introduces himself, and reveals that he's playing Tybalt. Then a set of twins stand, introducing themselves as Rachel and T.J Thorstan, but prefer to go by Ruffnut and Tuffnut.

"A lot of weird nicknames here," Astrid mutters under her breath to no one in particular, and Hiccup finds himself getting a little irritated, even though he was thinking the same thing.

Then it's his turn to stand up. "I'm Hiccup Haddock," he says. "And I'm playing Romeo."

There are a few claps and a cheer, and Hiccup gives a small smile before sitting back down.

Astrid stands up, and smiles at the whole room. "I'm Astrid Hofferson, and I'm playing Juliet."

There are more claps, and soon enough the reading is underway.

* * *

" _Here's much to do with hate but more with love, why then, O brawling love, O loving hate, O anything of nothing first created!"_

Astrid watches Hiccup as his voice glides over the words and she decides that she hates him. She already knew that she disliked the boy, but now that she knew he was good at reading Shakespeare, it had only made it worse. She wanted him to stumble over his first reading, wanted to have trouble with some of it, and here he was making music out of words like he was born to do this.

When it's her turn to read, she adds her own melody to the words, and does her best not to smile smugly when she sees Hiccup watching her from the corner of his eye.

* * *

After the table reading is done, the actors all find themselves with a drink in hand at some exclusive bar that the crew have hired out for them. They're supposed to socialise, meet other members of the cast and bond as group. Most of them, however, are pretending to talk while watching the two leads out of the corner of their eyes.

Astrid and Hiccup are sitting on opposite ends of a table, both clutching a drink in one hand and not so subtly glaring daggers at each other. Cami sits by Astrid's side, while Snotlout sits next to Hiccup.

"So, Snotlout," Astrid says, taking a sip of her drink. "How did you meet Hiccup?"

For all of Snotlout's toughness, he falters a little at being dragged into their battle of wits, but it passes his face quickly and he puffs out his chest, ready to show off.

"We've known each other for years," Snotlout says. "Our parents are friends. But we didn't really start getting along until a few years ago."

Which Astrid takes as 'I only started liking him when he got famous', but she doesn't say so.

"Ah, so you're not just his new five minute best friend then? Because he has a tendency to latch onto someone and then toss them out into the wind when he gets bored of them," she says, matter-of-factly, draining the last of her drink and placing the empty glass onto the table.

Hiccup's lip curls and he settles back in his chair, folding his arms. "I do fine with friends, actually."

"If you say so," Astrid says, her eyebrows raised.

"Yeah," he says. "At least I'm not so selective with my company that the only friend I have is my own cousin."

"Don't make accusations you know nothing about," Astrid all but hisses.

"Ah yes, Miss Disdainful, aren't you tired of being such a misery?"

"Ha. You're so witty, Hiccup. I'm so glad you're gracing us all with your presence," she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"You're the only one who doesn't want me around," Hiccup says. "Plenty of other girls would be happy to have my company."

Astrid snorts. "Frankly, I feel sorry for any woman that gets saddled with you."

"I feel sorry for anyone that has to listen to you talk," he shoots back.

"Oh, Hiccup, were you still talking? Because no one here is listening," she says, her voice sharper than a knife.

Hiccup shakes his head and slips off his chair. "I'm done with this," he says, before turning and marching out of the room.

* * *

"Why are you being like this?" Cami says.

They've gone back to Astrid's hotel room, (which is much nicer than anyone else's, much to Cami's chagrin), and the two of them are lying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling.

Astrid doesn't answer, so Cami flips over to look at her. "Look, don't get me wrong, I love snarky Astrid, but it was never this bad with Hiccup, was it? I always got the feeling you kind of _liked_ having arguments with him."

Astrid gives a long drawn out sigh. "Things changed. He just... gets under my skin."

There's a pause.

"He's really not as bad as you think he is," Cami says, breaking the silence.

Astrid groans, flipping over and shoving a pillow over her head. Her voice is muffled as she begins to rant. "Not you, too. The whole world is lusting after this guy when all he is an irritating ball of sarcasm and dry wit. He's not even that funny. Now even the girl who never has a good word to say about any man is on his side too."

Cami wrinkles her nose. "Ew. Lusting over him is not the right phrase. You do remember that I was in college with you when you met him? I knew him too. You were friends at one point in your lives. What happened?"

"I told you," Astrid grumbles. "Things changed."

"I'm just saying," Cami says. "Maybe the only reason why he says rude things is because you say them first."

Astrid refuses to speak to her for the rest of the night.

* * *

Across the hall, a similar conversation is being held.

Snotlout drums his fingers on the desk at the side of Hiccup's hotel room. He glances over to where Hiccup is lying on his bed, flicking through a book.

"I've never seen you like this before. You're normally really _nice_ to everybody. It's really annoying," Snotlout says.

"What are you talking about?" Hiccup says, still turning pages in the book and refusing to look up.

"Astrid."

Hiccup groans and drops the book on his face, stretching his arms across the bed. He stays in that position for a few seconds before sitting up, the book falling off the bed.

"She just grinds my gears," he mutters, clenching and unclenching his fist. "She always has to be right about everything and she never lets me get a word in edgeways."

Snotlout raises his eyebrows and turns away from Hiccup. "Seemed like a pretty two-way conversation, if you ask me," he says, under his breath.

"Sorry?"

"Nothing."

Hiccup gives another sigh and rolls over onto the bed, pushing his face into the pillow. Working with Astrid was already excruciating, and they had barely started yet.

It was going to be a long shoot.


	3. Interview Day

Interview day dawns with the sound of rain hammering down on Astrid's hotel window. As far as she's concerned, it's pathetic fallacy and a sure sign that getting out of bed would be a really bad idea. When her alarm goes off, she shrouds herself in her duvet and covers her head, wondering how long she can put the real world on hold.

Having just starred in a popular movie and about to start shooting one of the most anticipated films of the year, Astrid's agent has her booked for numerous interviews, and in an attempt to get them all out of the way, it was arranged that they would all be done over one day. It's going to be a very long day, and Astrid is determined to leave her bed at the last possible minute.

She loves her job. She loves acting and doing film work and meeting fans. But interviews? Interviews are another story. It might be alright if she was a guy, in which case she would get all sorts of interesting questions about the characters she plays, but since she's female, all she gets are questions about how she stays thin and whether she's got her eyes on any men. It's as excruciating as it sounds, and she is not looking forward to a whole day of this.

When she takes a seat and waits for her first interviewer, she braces herself for the incoming questions and practises her camera ready smile.

A woman takes a seat opposite her and looks at her with a gentle smile, and Astrid finds herself smiling back, thinking to herself that maybe this wouldn't be too bad.

"So, you look beautiful in every photograph. How do you maintain that?" the woman says.

Spoke too soon. It was going to be a long day.

* * *

"Is there any romance on the horizon for Astrid Hofferson?" her next interviewer says.

Astrid flashes him a tight-lipped smile and wonders how many times she's going to have to answer this question in the next few hours.

"No," she says, and hopes that her voice doesn't sound too sharp. "Romance isn't on the cards for me for the foreseeable future. I'm only interested in my work at the moment."

"So, we're not going to see anything between you and Hiccup Haddock?" the man asks.

Astrid decides she hates this slimy man and tries not to gag at his question. When did this universe decide that it was their business to pry into the private lives of celebrities? Even if she was interested in dating, it wasn't anyone else's business. She doesn't even know how to respond.

"No," Astrid says, sharply.

It isn't at all eloquent, and her agent is probably not going to like it, but she doesn't care. She's done with all of this, and if she gets anymore suggestive questions about Hiccup, she's going to punch something.

* * *

"So, your Romeo is being played by Hiccup Haddock. What's it like working with him?"

"Uh," Astrid says, frozen for a moment. On the tip of her tongue are all the things she wants to say about Hiccup. She wants to talk about his crass manners and his insufferable dry wit, but she's a professional first and foremost, and she's not vindictive enough to slander Hiccup in front of a camera. Not to mention that her agent would _murder_ her.

"I haven't really had the chance to work with him yet, we've only just started the production. He's a great actor, though," she ends up saying.

As much as it pains her to say it, Hiccup is a fantastic actor. If it were anyone else, she'd be psyched to work with such talent. She's just not psyched to work with _him_.

The clock gradually ticks on, and after question after question about Hiccup which steadily rankle Astrid, they eventually wrap themselves up and she is free to go back to her hotel room.

* * *

Astrid's mood is sour by the time she's back to her bed. She's ready to lie there in her pyjamas, eat crappy food and watch Netflix, but her plans are interrupted by her cousin banging on the door.

"What?" she says, unable to keep the annoyance out of her voice when she lets Cami in.

"Okay, whatever is going on here, has to stop," Cami says. "You need to get dressed and come to the bar with me."

"That's like, the opposite of what I want or need to do right now."

Cami stops in the middle of the room, glancing at Astrid and raising an eyebrow. "Clearly, you haven't had a good day. Moping around ain't gonna solve that – exactly why you should get dressed and come out with me, right now." She pauses for a moment. "Also, one of the camera crew is really hot and I need my wing woman."

Astrid snorts at that and sighs. "Okay, then. For you. Let me get dressed."

* * *

Cami won't tell Astrid which member of the camera crew she had been referring to – "How can I be a wing woman if you won't tell me who it is?" Astrid had said – but they do meet a camera woman named Heather, who wears entirely too much eyeliner which somehow only serves to make her more attractive. Both Cami and Astrid were gawking a little bit when they saw her.

The three find a table, and immerse themselves deep in conversation in only a few minutes.

"It's just so stupid," Astrid says, slightly tipsy. "Why is everyone so obsessed with whether or not I get a boyfriend? No one even knows what my type is."

"Oh, really?" Heather says, quirking an eyebrow and cracking a smile. "What _is_ your type?"

Cami grins. "She's really picky."

"Well…" Astrid says, drawing out the word. "Tall, but not too tall. They can't be short either, that'd just be awkward. I don't like beards, it just looks like it'd tickle. But clean-shaven just looks like they haven't hit puberty. Ugh, I don't know. Green eyes are nice, I guess."

Cami's eyes sparkle as she smiles. "And who do we know with green eyes?"

"A lot of people have green eyes," Astrid says, turning to glare at her cousin.

There's a lull in the conversation while the three of them sip their drinks.

"I won't get a boyfriend," Astrid says, sinking into her seat. "Or at least, I won't get boyfriend until boys stop acting like dirt."

The girls laugh at that and continue their chatter, the topic moving elsewhere, away from discussions about romance.

All three of them are too engrossed in their conversation, none of them noticing Hiccup scraping his chair back a few tables over, leaving his half full glass. When he leaves the room, none of them see him.


	4. Eavesdropping

Hiccup knows he shouldn't eavesdrop. He may not like Astrid, but he considers himself a decent human being. Listening in to conversations isn't something a good person does.

But, they're right there, a few tables away from him and they haven't noticed him in the corner, and the bar is quiet and he can hear everything. So, he's not _really_ listening in. He can't help it if he hears something they wouldn't want him to hear. He can't shut his ears off.

This is how he tries to justify himself, anyway.

He'd watched as Cami had dragged Astrid into the bar, brought her over to buy a drink and introduced her to one of the camera women. It didn't take them very long before they were all sitting around a table and talking.

Hiccup can hear them, chattering away about Astrid's day and how fed up she is with all the questions about, well, _him_. She carries on talking about her type, and the more she talks, the more irritated Hiccup finds himself getting. He doesn't know why, but for some reason, everything that Astrid says gets right under his skin. Her stupid list is ridiculous; everything she says just contradicts itself.

His ears prick when he hears Cami say "And who do we know with green eyes?"

 _Surely they're not talking about… no. They can't be._

Astrid says "A lot of people have green eyes," and Hiccup settles back into his seat, because there's no way they'd be talking about him.

But the moment he decides he's had enough is when Astrid cries out "I won't get a boyfriend! Or at least I won't until boys stop acting like dirt."

With the sounds of their laughter that follows, Hiccup decides that he can't be in the room anymore, so he leaves his drink and heads towards the exit.

* * *

His hotel room, as always, has been overtaken by Snotlout, only this time Fishlegs and Tuffnut (who Hiccup remembers is playing Mercutio) have joined him.

"Whose room is this again?" Hiccup mutters when he enters.

"Hiccup!" Snotlout says, waving his arms up to beckon him into the room. "Nice of you to join us."

Hiccup grunts something inaudible and then drops himself onto his bed, pressing his face onto the pillow. "Can you all leave now?" he says, his voice muffled.

Snotlout rolls his eyes and gives a deep sigh. "What's she done now then?" he says, twisting himself around to look at Hiccup.

Hiccup sits up and clenches his fists together, explaining what he had just overheard in the bar.

"She's just so… contradictory," he says. "She says one thing and then she says another and it doesn't even make sense."

Fishlegs cocks an eyebrow at Hiccup and puts his head on the side, appraising Hiccup carefully. "Why are you letting this get to you so much?"

"Yeah, dude," Tuffnut chips in. "If you don't like her, why do you care what her type is?"

Fishlegs nods. "You're taking this a little personally."

"I am not," Hiccup grunts from the bed. "I just don't understand why so many people like her so much when she makes no sense."

"Whatever, Hiccup," Snotlout grumbles. "Just get up and help us look for costumes for the Halloween party, yeah? All you do is talk about Astrid. It's really annoying."

"That's not all I do," Hiccup says, but he gets up and off the bed anyway, stuffing his hands into his pockets and letting them lead him out of the hotel room.

* * *

" _For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss."_

Hiccup slides his hand across Astrid's, and the two stand there, locked in each other's eyes. Their faces are covered with intricate masks, but their eyes are showing and Astrid finds herself frozen under Hiccup's intense gaze.

" _Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?_ "

Sometimes, when the cameras are on and the lights are up, the crew fades into the background and Astrid forgets that Hiccup is Hiccup, that they are not Romeo and Juliet, and they are not bound together in a maelstrom of love and hate.

But only for a split second.

Then the director calls cut, and the moment is lost.

* * *

Snotlout rests his elbow on the table and sits his chin atop his fist, staring dreamily off into the distance. Hiccup had arranged for the two of them to meet for coffee, to talk about the upcoming Halloween party and what costumes they were going to wear, but his friend was otherwise occupied with whatever – or more likely, _whoever_ – was floating through his brain right now.

For someone so brash, Snotlout really was a sap when it came to love. Hiccup finds it rather annoying.

"Hiccup," Snotlout says, his voice far away. "What do you think of Cami?"

Hiccup takes a sip of his coffee and leans back in his chair. "Cami? Very short. Wild blonde hair. Looks like she could fight a bear despite her size," he says.

"I'm serious, Hiccup," Snotlout says, still staring way off into the distance. "I think she's beautiful."

Hiccup shrugs. "I think Astrid's prettier, if weren't for the fact that she's awful."

Snotlout appears to ignore him, his face still stuck in that goofy expression that half makes Hiccup pity the boy and half makes him want to throw up.

"Okay no," Hiccup says, clicking in front of Snotlout's face to make him look ahead. "Relationships are bad. They're just promises of commitment that no one ever keeps. They're a lie."

"I don't care what you think, Hiccup," Snotlout says. "I'm going to ask her out."

Hiccup almost spits out his drink at that and he shifts in his seat, leaning forward and looking straight at Snotlout, trying to get the guy to look back at him. His tone changes when he speaks, no longer dry and sarcastic, but instead back to his normal voice, an attempt to get him to listen.

"Snotlout, I'm being serious now," Hiccup says. "You can't ask out Cami. I can't tell you why, but you can't."

"This is just because you hate her cousin."

Hiccup groans and wipes a hand across his face. "No, you need to listen to me. This isn't about me not liking relationships or the fact that I have a weird rivalry thing with Astrid. It's just that – ugh. I can't tell you why, but you can't ask her out."

Snotlout frowns at him and folds his arms. "If there was a real reason, you would just tell me. Fuck up your own relationships, don't mess with mine."

Then he gets up and stomps out of the shop.

Hiccup groans again and settles back into his chair. This was not going to go well.


	5. Façade

" _Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear, beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear."_

Astrid watches Hiccup from the edge of set and ponders how under the lights he can become a different person. In all the years that she's been working in film, she's never met another actor who can completely embody a character. It's always just seemed like a pale reflection or a mask that could be scratched away to reveal the actor's own self.

Hiccup was different. Hiccup _became_. He could stand on set as himself, but as soon as the cameras were on he was someone else. All trace of the Hiccup she knew was gone.

It scares her a little. She wonders how easily he could disguise himself, take her up in conversation, and she'd never know it was him.

* * *

The crew organised a Halloween party for the entire cast, a chance to take a break from filming and have a little fun. Everyone had been getting into the spirit of it, and for weeks the cast had been discussing costumes and who they were going to go with. It reminds Astrid a little of school, back when everyone went crazy over prom. Despite the fact that she thinks she's past this stage, she can't help getting a little excited too.

Cami and Heather (who have become very close friends, Astrid has noticed) arrive at Astrid's hotel room an hour early to get ready, along with Ruffnut, another friend they've made. _See, Hiccup_ , Astrid says in her head. _I can make friends. So there_.

Heather and Cami dress as pirates and Ruffnut dresses as some sort of Viking warrior, with her hair in braids and a horned helmet on her head. Astrid doesn't dress as anything in particular, she just wears a long, Grecian style dress, with her hair twisted into braids and a golden headband around her hair. The other girls grin approvingly at her, and Astrid can't help but smile a little when Heather mutters "damn," under her breath.

The party is in full swing when the four of them arrive with music blaring and people dancing and wearing all manner of costumes. Cami takes Astrid's hand and together they move over to the dance floor, and soon enough, Astrid finds herself having more fun than she's had in a while. The best part? Hiccup is nowhere to be found.

* * *

Hiccup had sat in his hotel room, wondering whether it was a good idea to go or not. He and Snotlout had sort of made up and the two of them were on okay terms, but it still felt like he was walking on eggshells around him.

He'd pretty much made up his mind that he wasn't going to go, but after staring at the ceiling for a good thirty minutes, he decided that he couldn't take the boredom anymore. Not to mention, the costume and the full face mask he had bought were hanging ever so temptingly up on the back of the door.

It would be a shame not to get to use them.

* * *

Astrid finds herself lost in the crowd of people dancing. Cami and Heather had gone off on their own somewhere and Ruffnut is nowhere to be found. She stays in the middle of the swathe of people, dancing with whomever takes her fancy. There's one particular guy who's been hanging around, wearing a full face mask and a long coat. He must be a part of either the cast or the crew, because he wouldn't be in here otherwise, but she doesn't recognise him – the mask obscures his face too much.

After a while, the two find themselves dancing together.

"You're Astrid, right?" the man says.

Astrid nods. "That's me."

"You must know Hiccup, then,"

Astrid makes a face. "Have you not met him?"

"Haven't had the pleasure," he says.

The music slows and changes to a different song, this one much slower. Astrid tries not to wrinkle her nose. It reminds her distinctly of middle school, when she was young, had braces and couldn't slow dance to save her life.

Even so, she offers her hand out to this stranger and he takes it without hesitation, the two of them moving together has one. He's good at this, Astrid notes to herself.

"It's not a pleasure, trust me," Astrid says, rolling her eyes.

"Is that so? I heard he was handsome, and quite witty too."

Astrid scoffs. "Wit? That boy doesn't know the first thing about wit. He's rude and sarcastic, and somehow people still sing his praises."

Although Astrid cannot see under the mask, the man raises an eyebrow. "If I ever meet him, I'll let him know you said that."

This does not faze Astrid. "Go ahead," she says. "All he'll do is deliver some snarky comment about me. And whatever it is, it won't be true."

The song ends, and the two part. Astrid looks around and sees Cami waving at her from the side of the room, so she nods at her dance partner and turns to go meet her cousin.

The man, whom she never asked a name for, watches her go, his face still covered with the mask.

* * *

Hiccup returns to his hotel room, which is for once devoid of anybody else, much to his relief. He falls onto his bed and pulls his mask off, letting it drop onto the floor. All he can think about is what just happened out there on the dance floor, holding Astrid's hands and swaying around the room.

 _Is that what she really thinks of me?_

Hiccup had not meant to deceive her. He assumed that she would recognize him, but when he got out there onto the floor and she had looked at him with her bright eyes and a soft smile, he knew that she had no idea who he was. He didn't know what possessed him to pretend to be someone else, curiosity perhaps, or just the heat of the moment.

He'd listened to everything she had said, let every blow hit him like a punch in the stomach, and now he lay on his bed, letting all of the words wash over him.

Eventually, he falls asleep fully-clothed, wondering why all of this bothers him so much.


	6. Almost

"It was just insult after insult. I wasn't even saying anything bad about her, she was just going for it."

Hiccup and Tuffnut are waiting in between takes, while the crew prepare the scene and set up the cameras. It's an outdoor scene, and the two of them are dressed in puffy coats, holding cups of coffee while they wait for their call.

"But isn't that like, your deal or something?" Tuffnut says, lying back in his seat and taking a swig of his drink.

"What?"

"You and Astrid. You've got this insult thing going on," he says.

"Yeah, but it's usually pretty two sided. She was just going for it, and I wasn't saying anything," Hiccup says, fiddling with the lid of the cup and frowning.

"I don't know what to tell you, dude. Seems to me like she was just doing what you guys have always done."

Tuffnut's called back up onto set, and he hops off his chair with a "See you later, dude," leaving Hiccup alone to stew by himself.

The overwhelming thought that runs through his head is: _why does this bother you so much?_ Astrid and Hiccup fight. Astrid and Hiccup snark at each other. That's what they do.

So why were Astrid's words bothering him so much this time?

* * *

Hiccup waits for his next scene at the side of the set.

" _My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me, that I must love a loathèd enemy_ ," Astrid says.

He's never seen someone move so gracefully. Astrid moves with poise and purpose, light on her feet like she's a practised ballerina. The way her face looks when she's Juliet, so soft and light, is so different from the way she looks as Astrid.

Hiccup can't help but wonder if it's to do with him.

* * *

"Look, we've been over this. I don't need, or want a boyfriend. I don't like relationships," Astrid says, as she and the girls walk back to their hotel room from set. "This is a broken record."

Heather cocks an eyebrow at Astrid, something of a knowing smile on her face. "What's so bad about romance, Astrid? Please, tell us."

"There are just so many stupid rules to it. No kissing on the first date, like, what's that all about? Then there are things like holding hands. Buying gifts. There are rules to that too. If you don't think there are certain rules to this whole relationship thing, you're lying to yourself," she says, matter of fact.

Cami laughs at that and claps her cousin on the shoulder. "The only rules are the ones you enforce on yourself, Astrid. No two relationships work in the same way."

"When did you become such an expert?" Astrid says. "Got something to tell me, Cami?"

"Ha. Stop deflecting," Cami says, ducking her head and shoving her hands in her pockets.

She doesn't say anything more after that. Astrid looks down at Cami curiously, before rolling her eyes and moving on.

"Then there's things like commitment. Cheating. Stuff like that. Relationships are messy, if they go wrong, it ruins everything," Astrid says. "I just don't need any of that right now."

"Astrid, if you're afraid that something will go wrong, you don't have to-" Heather starts to say, her voice much softer and much less teasing that usual, but she's cut off before she can finish her sentence.

"I'm not afraid of anything," she snaps. "I'm just not interested in anyone, nor do I see myself getting interested in anyone, ever. End of."

The conversation stills. Heather and Cami share a glance, but say nothing else.

* * *

There's something cold in Hiccup's eyes on set today. Usually, they have this little glint in them, this little teasing sparkle, even when he's angry at her. If there's one place that Hiccup cannot hide his emotions, it is in his eyes.

His tongue rolls over the words as always, turning the language into a song. His acting is exquisite and she can hear Finn clapping his hands in delight around the corner where he's watching the scene on a monitor. His movements are perfect.

But not his eyes.

His eyes are cold and distant, like he's working on auto-pilot, lost in some far away land in his head. Or maybe he's mulling something over, letting his body do the work for him while he runs away with his thoughts. Or maybe he's angry, _really_ angry, like someone said or did something that made his blood boil and now he can't get the vexation out of his head. Or maybe he's sad, pretending everything is okay, but never quite managing to get that emotion to his eyes.

Astrid almost asks him what's wrong.

Almost.


	7. An Intervention

" _Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take_."

This is the moment that Hiccup's been dreading. It's the moment that he's kept in the back of his mind, the moment he pushed away and refused to think about. It's the moment, he supposes, that this whole production has been leading up to.

It's the moment where, with the cameras on and everyone watching, he leans forward, cups Astrid's face, and kisses her.

Nothing.

He feels nothing but a pair of lips being pushed next to his, and when he pulls away, all he can see is Astrid's cold, dead eyes.

" _Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged_ ," he says.

It's clear to him now, having seen her reaction and the way she glared at him afterwards with those blank, uncaring eyes, that Astrid feels nothing for him.

* * *

When a group of people are marched into a conference room, they assume it must be for something serious. The director, Finn Hofferson himself, who usually only makes appearances when a scene is being shot, is there. If he's there, it must be something of great importance. More and more people file in, muttering to each other in hushed whispers. Why are there here? Has something gone wrong with the shoot?

The more that each person looks around, the more they realise what an odd group of people has been collected here. There's a handful of actors: the man playing Tybalt, alongside Mercutio, the nurse and Lady Capulet. There's that camera woman, the one with dark hair and even darker eyeliner. The scriptwriter is here too.

The collection of people doesn't seem to make sense at all. Where are the leads, Hiccup and Astrid? Nowhere to be found, that's for sure.

A hush falls over the room as the door is slammed shut and someone coughs to announce that the meeting has started. Everyone looks to the director to find out what's going on, but it's not Finn who speaks, rather his daughter, the small blonde with crazy hair.

Cami stands up on a chair so that everyone can see her. "Alright," she says. "Let's get down to it. I presume we're all aware of Hiccup and Astrid, who so happen to be playing Romeo and Juliet?"

Everyone nods, still unsure of where this is going.

"Then, you'll all be aware of this little rivalry they've got going on."

People mutter at that, rolling their eyes and nodding again.

"Basically, we've brought you here today, because as we're all close friends with either Hiccup or Astrid, it's high time we did something about it."

"What are you proposing?" Fishlegs says, calling over from the opposite corner of the room.

Heather, who sits next to Cami, is the one to speak up. "We all know how… passionate they are about each other," she says, her lips twisted into a smirk.

"Yeah, they won't shut up about each other," Cami says.

That gets a laugh out of everyone.

"I was with Hiccup for four hours yesterday," Snotlout calls from the back of the room. "All he could do was talk about something Astrid said. It was really annoying."

Cami snorts. "Same with Astrid. It's always Hiccup did this, Hiccup did that."

"They're a little bit obsessed with each other," Heather says, hiding the grin on her face with her hand.

The group laughs and the hushed whispers rise again, before Cami claps her hands to bring the room to quiet once more.

"So, here's what I brought you all here for," Cami says. "We think that the two of them are perfect for each other."

"I don't think they'd ever admit it, Cami," Fishlegs pipes up. "The two of them are far too proud."

"My thoughts, exactly," Cami says.

"That's why we think that the two of them need a little… help," Heather says, still grinning.

Fishlegs nods at that, and strokes his chin, thinking. "It would be good if the two of them got together. It would make filming a whole lot easier."

"Not to mention, it'd be great to see the two of them a little happier," Cami says.

Everyone agrees with that.

"That's all well and good," Finn's voice booms out across the room, and silence falls while he speaks. "But how are we going to get this to work?"

"That's what I needed help with," Cami says. "Any ideas?"

"Why don't we just tell them that the other likes them?" Tuffnut suggests.

"It's not going to work," Fishlegs says. "I've tried hinting it before, and Hiccup's just completely shut me out."

"Same here with Astrid," Cami says.

"We need to plant the thought into their heads somehow, without them hearing it directly from us," Heather says, chewing on her lip in a way that she always does when she's thinking about something.

"Force 'em into a locked room together. Make 'em work out their issues," Ruffnut says, speaking for the first time since the meeting started.

"That only works in high school movies, Ruff," Cami says, snorting.

Ruffnut shrugs. "If you say so."

"We need something more subtle," Heather says.

Quiet falls over the room once more, while people turn to each other and whisper again.

Fishlegs is the one to give the winning suggestion. "What if both of them were to overhear a group of us talking about how the other is in love with them?"

Cami clicks, pointing over at Fishlegs. "That could work."

"They'll both feel really clever that they heard it as well," Heather says, smiling. "It's perfect for these two."

"Alright, how are we going to engineer this?"

The conversation continues, until everyone in the room is clear on the plan.

* * *

Astrid stares at her hotel room ceiling, her eyes glazing over. She had done nothing all day, and the boredom had crept up in her bones and radiated through her whole body. Her limbs were restless, and her fingers drum up and down on her blanket.

It felt like she was alone in the hotel. She had gone and looked for Cami or Heather, or anyone really, but no one was to be found anywhere. Astrid had hastily checked her schedule, suddenly worried that there had been a shoot or a rehearsal or something that she'd forgotten about, but there was nothing.

So where was everybody? Surely she couldn't be the only person with a day off?

More time passes, and Astrid considers going out into town to get something to eat when she hears a knock on her door. Cami walks in shortly afterwards, dropping herself onto the bed next to Astrid.

"Wanna go out tonight?" Cami asks in lieu of a greeting, as if she hasn't been missing for most of the day. "It's your night off, right?"

"Yeah, but where have you been all day?" Astrid says.

Cami shrugs. "Oh, nowhere in particular."


	8. Phase One

Snotlout is entirely lovesick. It's annoying.

Hiccup loves his friend, he really does. Snotlout still has some high school jock tendencies and his humour can be a little too… _lad-ish_ , but all in all he's been a good friend to Hiccup in the last couple of years. The two of them had shared good times together, and their families were friends, which was a plus.

But god damn, when Snotlout falls for someone, he falls hard. For someone that acts so tough, he really turns to mush when he finds a girl he likes. It makes Hiccup want to throw up a little.

Despite Hiccup's warnings, Snotlout is head over heels for Cami, and Hiccup has found himself listening to him talk about her time after time.

"You'll understand when you find someone," Snotlout says, staring off into the distance.

"I'm not going to find anyone," Hiccup says, dryly. "We've had this conversation."

Snotlout grins, patting Hiccup on the shoulder. "You say that now. I can't wait until you get a girlfriend and I can rub it in your face."

Hiccup rolls his eyes, and pointedly takes Snotlout's hand away from his shoulder and puts it back down onto the table they're both sitting around. "Snotlout, I assure you, if I ever find someone that I like that much, you can feel free to make fun of me."

"Oh, I will."

"I look forward to it," Hiccup says, bending his head so that his friend can't see his smile.

Inside, he holds back a scoff. Having seen how Snotlout has been acting lately, Hiccup has decided that there is no way that he wants any of this. He isn't ever going to be reduced to a weak mess any moment a certain girl pays attention to him. Nope. He refuses.

Snotlout takes a swig of his drink and waves it in Hiccup's face. "Mark my words, Hiccup. You'll eat your words."

"Consider them marked."

* * *

Hiccup makes his way back to the hotel after Snotlout abandons him for the bar. He's not in the mood to stay out late tonight and all he wants to do is go back to his room and collapse onto his bed. He's about to head up the stairs, when he spots some of his friends in the lobby. Tuffnut and Fishlegs are chatting to each other animatedly along with... is that the director? Hiccup's surprised. Finn Hofferson rarely graces anyone's presence unless they're filming.

He's about to go up and say hello, when he hears his name and his interest is instantly piqued.

Okay, eavesdropping his bad. Hiccup _knows_ this, hell, he's been through this before.

But he heard his name, and all at once he wants to know what they're talking about. He knows he could just go up and ask, but… yeah. The temptation gets the better of him.

Hiccup shifts around the side of the room and manages to hide himself behind a pillar, close to where the three men are talking.

"She's really tearing herself up over him. Cami's been saying all sorts of things," Finn says.

Hiccup's ears prick, and he inches himself around the pillar, straining his ears to hear the conversation properly.

Finn gestures to a table, which much to Hiccup's luck is the table closest to the pillar he's hiding behind. The three sit down and clink their drinks together, relaxing in their seats and taking a sip. Fishlegs glances up and Hiccup darts behind the pillar to prevent being seen.

Fishlegs appears not to see him as he turns back and leans into the table. "So she's really in love with Hiccup then?"

 _What?_

For a moment, Hiccup's mind stops. Of all the things he expected them to be saying, this was not it.

"Yeah," Finn says. "She's been keeping herself up all night about him."

 _Who?_

Hiccup shifts around the side, fully prepared to duck back around again if anyone sees him.

"I thought she didn't like relationships? That's all she ever says," Tuffnut adds. "Or at least, that's what Cami says."

 _Cami… They're not talking about…_

"She probably just puts on a front. I mean, we all know how Hiccup feels about Astrid. He hates her," Fishlegs says.

Hiccup takes a step back away from the pillar. His thoughts are screaming, and the only coherent word running through his head is _WHAT_.

 _WHAT, WHAT, WHAT?!_

Astrid doesn't like him. Astrid hates him. She takes every opportunity to make a catty comment about him. They argue all the time.

"They've known each other for years, though," Finn says. "I wonder why she didn't confess before?"

"Probably because he'd be a complete dick about it," Tuffnut mutters.

Fishlegs nods. "That's exactly why we can't tell him. He'll make the poor girl's life miserable."

Poor girl. _Poor girl?_

Hiccup backs away from the wall, his head spinning. He can't process this. He can't. His hands are shaking and his legs have forgotten how they work.

 _Astrid. Likes. Him._

It just doesn't compute. It doesn't make sense. Astrid can't like him.

He stumbles back away from the three men and back into reception. As soon as his legs start to work properly, he turns and runs up the hotel stairs.

* * *

"Did you see him?" Tuffnut says, resting his knees on his chair and craning his neck to see the stairs beside the hotel reception.

"He heard the whole thing," Fishlegs says, with something of a triumphant smirk on his face. "He couldn't help but listen to us."

The two of them clink their glasses together in success, shifting back into their seats with victorious smiles.

Finn smiles too. "I suppose I shouldn't approve of this," he says. "But, I reckon this'll help them have more chemistry on screen."

Fishlegs cocks an eyebrow at that. "And hopefully make the two of them happier?"

"That too."

"Anyway, I can tell Cami that our part was a success, so the girls can do their bit with Astrid. Oh, this is so exciting!" Fishlegs says, bringing his hands to his face.

He's been holding it in, but Fishlegs has been really excited with the whole get-Astrid-and-Hiccup-together plan. He's a closet romantic, and he loves the idea of two of his friends getting together.

It should make for a pretty interesting story to tell.


	9. The Past

Cami doesn't mean to get Astrid drunk – not at all. It's just that Astrid is less guarded when she's had a little to drink. She talks more and snaps less. When Astrid's had something to drink, she doesn't shut Cami out as much. You'll forgive Cami for being a little too generous with the alcohol, because she's _worried_.

She tells herself it doesn't make sense to be worried for her slightly older, always-has-her-life-in-order cousin, but it's been creeping up on her more and more lately. There's something up with Astrid, and Cami wants to know what.

Accepting the role of Juliet was probably a bad idea. Not in terms of the pay check, or the publicity. Since filming began, Astrid's been tired, stressed and the spark in her eyes has completely disappeared.

Cami wants her cousin to be happy more than anything, but she has her own selfish reason for wanting Astrid to perk up again. She's always known her cousin as the one that has everything together – Astrid's her support system when things get a little tough.

Cami's not sure that she can be the one that always has everything together.

Astrid groans, leaning back in her chair and taking a big swig of her drink. "Everywhere I go, all anyone wants to talk about is face-ache."

"Face-ache?" Cami snorts. "That's a new one."

She flops in her seat, strands of hair falling from her plait. "It's because it hurts my face to look at him."

She takes another swig, and Cami frowns, reaching out to snatch the drink out of Astrid's hands. "You should be more careful, what if there were paparazzi around here?" she chides.

Astrid sighs, but makes no attempt to grab the drink again. "Never thought I'd see the day that Cami was being responsible."

Cami bites the inside of her cheeks to stop herself from throwing back some sort of insult. She does that thing she was always taught to do when she was angry – breathe in and out gently and count to ten – before she reaches forward to take Astrid's hands.

"Seriously, Astrid. Tell me the truth. Are you okay?" she says.

"I'm fine," Astrid says, dragging out the word 'fine'. "Why wouldn't I be?"

But Cami takes in Astrid's face – the hair out of place, the tired eyes, the frown lines – and she can't bring herself to believe her. She swallows, lets out a sigh and asks the question she's been afraid to ask.

"What really happened with you and Hiccup?"

Astrid groans, pulls her hands out of Cami's and rests back into her chair, rubbing her eyes. "We were friends, you know that."

"Yeah, we met him in the first year of Uni," Cami says, nodding to indicate that Astrid should go on.

"We were really good friends for most of first year. And then he just stopped," Astrid says.

She's not looking at Cami now, she's staring up at the ceiling, trying to pretend that she doesn't care about this conversation.

"Stopped?"

"He stopped wanting to be friends. I don't even know. He got really cold and distant, and he kept talking about how friendship was fleeting. Then he latched onto whoever became his new best friend, I guess," she says, still staring straight up at the ceiling, squinting when her eyes meet the fluorescent lightbulbs.

Cami frowns. "I know most of this. That can't be it."

"And then," Astrid says, gritting her teeth. "There were the inter-college championships."

Her cousin's eyes widen slightly in recognition, and she settles back into her seat. "I'd forgotten," she says, quietly.

Every year, the University they had attended threw a competition of sorts. The university was split into smaller colleges, and every college would take part; it had become one of the biggest and most anticipated event amongst the student body. All sorts of events were had in the midst of it all, and the college with the most points won the championship cup. It was the most coveted thing by everyone who attended.

"You were preparing for the championships way before we were even accepted into the uni," Cami says, her voice much softer as everything begins to get a little clearer.

"I worked so hard," Astrid says. "I wanted that cup so badly. I did whatever I could to be noticed by the college so that they'd let me be their representative for the last event."

"The trivia challenge," Cami says.

"Yeah," Astrid says. She's still staring straight up at the ceiling, refusing to look at Cami. "I worked so fucking hard. I blew off my studies to prepare for that. I was going to win it for our house. Then, the guy who was representing Hiccup's house got sick so he couldn't do it, and Hiccup stepped in. He beat me without even trying."

Finally, she looks back at Cami, and Cami doesn't stop her when she reaches forward and grabs her drink. "Then when we were done, and Hiccup's house were given the cup, he told me I should work on being more of a gracious loser."

Her fingers curl around her glass, her knuckles going white. "There you have it. Rivalry began. Continued to this day. Don't wanna talk about it anymore."

There is a long silence, while Cami lets the conversation sink in and Astrid drinks.

"You know, Astrid," Cami says, after a while. "That was a long time ago now."

Astrid rolls her eyes. "No," she says, sharply. "I don't care how long ago it was. He was a dick then, and he's a dick now. End of."

She drains the last of her drink and then storms out of the room.

Cami sighs and rests back in her chair, her hands covering her face. That had gone well.

"Hey, couldn't help but overhear."

Cami looks up to see Heather standing next to her, offering up a sympathetic smile as she slips into the seat next to her.

"You still want to go through with the plan?" Heather asks.

"We can't back out now. The guys have already done their part," Cami, twiddling her thumbs on the table.

"Yeah, but if you don't think it's a good idea, we don't have to do our bit," Heather says. "She sounded pretty angry."

Cami doesn't say anything to that, she just stares down at her fingers.

"Cami?" Heather says. "Do you still think we should do it?"

Cami stares at the space where Astrid had been. She thinks about everything that Astrid had just told her – about Hiccup's actions and the way that she was talking about him.

"Yeah," she says, after a few seconds. "We should."

* * *

Hiccup spreads out across his bed, his arms stretched wide. God knows how long he's been lying here, staring straight up at the ceiling.

 _Astrid. Likes. Me._

It just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense for Astrid to like him. Astrid's rude to him; she's _always_ been rude to him.

…But her uncle, the director himself, was the one who said she liked him. There was no way that this could just be idle gossip or speculation.

Oh, no.

What if, all this time, all the insults and sarcasm had really just been flirting?

Well, he doesn't like her back. That much he's sure of. Astrid Hofferson and Hiccup Haddock is something that will never work out, not in a million years, no matter how pretty she is.

And funny, she's funny too. He'd found himself struggling not to laugh at some of the things he'd heard her say.

But none of that means anything!

Astrid argues with him all the time, she insults him near constantly, she's rude and mean and he does _not_ like her.

Hiccup groans, and presses his face into the pillow.

* * *

Hiccup is acting weird on set today.

He actually said hello to her this morning. Just hello. No snarky comment, no hissed insult. He smiled at her. An actual smile.

The spark in his eyes are back. They're no longer cold or dead.

Astrid wonders if she should say something. She doesn't.

What is going on with the world today?


	10. Phase Two

The entire cast and crew had the whole day off. They were mid-way through filming, and Christmas was edging slowly closer. Soon enough, they'd all be taking a two week break from filming all together and going back to their families for the holidays. So, before they all left the city, they were having a big meal together to celebrate Christmas. Everyone was a little more excited for it then they'd admit; after all the weeks they had been filming, they'd all become incredibly close.

Everyone was there… except for Hiccup. He hadn't shown up.

* * *

"Snotlout?" Hiccup says, as he enters his room. "You here?"

The bathroom door is slightly ajar and Hiccup can hear water running, so he guesses that Snotlout is in there. He makes his way to the bed and flops onto it with a sigh, taking his pillow in his arms and staring up at the ceiling.

"Look, don't make fun of me," he says, raising his voice a little so that he can be heard from the bathroom. "I know what I said before."

Snotlout doesn't answer him, so Hiccup keeps talking. "I heard Fishlegs and Tuffnut talking about something, and Finn was with them so it had to be true."

He turns onto his stomach, and curls up small across the bed. "They said that… they said Astrid likes me. Which is crazy, but I've been thinking about it and I think it sort of makes sense. All this time, I thought she hated me when really…"

His voice trails away as he thinks about what to say next. "They said that they weren't going to tell me because they thought I'd be rude about it, so that's why I'm telling you and not them. Apparently, she's been up all night about me, and I've given her no reason to think I feel the same way."

Then he stops.

And he smiles.

"And I do," he says, pressing his face into the pillow. "I really think I do. She's beautiful and funny and smart and I think I've been really stupid this whole time. I've been so blind. You'd have every right to make fun of me."

At that, he stops and he waits for Snotlout to say something in return, but he doesn't.

"Snotlout?" Hiccup says, confused.

He slips off the bed and wanders over to the bathroom, only to find it empty, with the tap still running at the sink.

"Great," Hiccup says to himself, dryly. "I've been talking to myself."

He's turning the tap off and grumbling to himself about his unruly friend leaving the water on when he hears the knock at the door.

When he opens it, Astrid is standing there, her weight shifted onto one foot and one hand on her hip. Her other foot is tapping impatiently, her bottom lip sticking out.

"Hey face-ache," she says. "Everyone wants you to come down and join us for dinner for some reason."

"Astrid!" Hiccup says. "Astrid. Hi. Hi, Astrid. Hey."

She narrows her eyes, raising an eyebrow and inching away from the door. "Ooookay. Well, anyway, that's all I came to say. Everyone's downstairs waiting for you."

"Well, thanks for taking all the trouble to come all the way up here to tell me."

She looks at him like he had just grown another head. "If it had caused me that much trouble, I wouldn't have come up here."

"Oh, so you wanted to see me?" he says.

"Yes," Astrid says, her eyes widening and her voice slowing down as if speaking to a toddler. "I wanted to be up here with you instead of downstairs, where my friends are and where there is food. Look, come and eat, or don't, I don't care. Bye."

Then she stuffs her hands in her pockets and turns away back down the stairs. Hiccup closes the door.

There was a double meaning in everything she had just said, Hiccup is sure of it. She'd been acting indifferent so that she could hide her feelings. She'd stated it right there, sarcastic or otherwise, that she'd wanted to be up there with them. Everything was becoming so much clearer now.

Hiccup edges back into the room and hides his grin in the pillow.

* * *

Astrid once again finds herself alone in her hotel room, having no idea where any of her friends are. Things have been weird lately.

The crew's Christmas dinner had been yesterday, and somehow everyone had formed into little groups. When she'd arrived, everyone had been lost in their conversations, and she'd been asked to go and get Hiccup from his room, seeing as he hadn't shown up. When she got there, he'd been acting so… not Hiccup. He seemed really happy to see her.

Weird.

Without warning, her door slams open. Astrid jumps three feet in the air and instinctively reaches out for her pillow and holds it in front of her, as if it would act as some sort of suitable weapon. Heather marches into the room and takes Astrid by the wrist, pulling her up off the bed.

"You need to come downstairs," Heather says.

"Where's the fire, Heather?" Astrid says, as she's dragged out of the room.

"You just have to come with me, right now," Heather says. "There's something you need to hear."

Heather leads Astrid down the stairs to one of the recreational areas of the hotel, and points out where Cami and Ruffnut are sitting in some of the comfy chairs. When Astrid tries to speak, Heather presses a finger over her lips. Wordlessly, she gestures for Astrid to stand in the doorway outside but within earshot, while she goes over and sits down next to the other girls.

"What did I miss?" Heather says, dropping herself comfortably between the two of them. "You were talking about Hiccup?"

Astrid flattens herself against the wall she's hiding behind and takes a peek out to where are friends are.

Cami sucks in a breath. "He's not doing too well. Snotlout's been telling me that he's not getting enough sleep or eating properly."

Astrid resists the urge to sigh. Is this what Heather brought her down here for? What does she care if Hiccup's doing badly?

"Did he say why?" Heather asks.

Cami opens her mouth to say something, but she's cut off by Ruffnut, who leans in, grinning as she says "Hiccup is in love with Astrid."

What.

No.

 _What?!_

Astrid's face contorts as she tries to comprehend what she's just heard. This has got to be bogus.

"It's true," Cami says. "He's been pining for her like nothing else."

"Why doesn't he just tell her?" Heather says.

Cami snorts. "Are you kidding? Astrid would rip the poor boy to shreds. She'd tease him so much, he wouldn't be able to stand it."

Astrid scowls at that. _Damn right, she would._

"Don't you think those two belong together, though?" Ruffnut says.

Astrid's face screws up. Not in a million years.

"Yeah, of course," Cami says. "But even if Astrid feels the same way, she's far too proud to admit it. She'd much rather insult him than admit any feelings."

Astrid has to bite her tongue to stop herself from jumping out from her hiding spot and screaming "I don't have any feelings!"

This couldn't be true. There was no way that any of this was true. Except… Hiccup _had_ been acting weird lately. He'd been smiling at her. He'd been more polite.

Oh, God.

 _Hiccup is in love with her._

Astrid slides down the wall until she's crouching on the floor, her hands pressed in front of her face. _What?!_

The first thought that comes to mind is ew. Ewww. Hiccup, of all people, likes her? Of all the things to happen. She doesn't like relationships and she doesn't like Hiccup, why the hell did the universe throw her this curve ball? Her fingers grip in her hair as her thoughts turn to mush.

What's she supposed to do now? Does she talk to him? Does she confront him?

Her legs wobble as she stumbles away from the wall and back up the hotel stairs.

What the hell, universe?


	11. Teasing

The illness hit Hiccup with a vengeance. It took hold of him at the start of the week, and by Friday it was at full throttle, and Hiccup felt like his whole head had been stuffed full of cotton wool and his throat rubbed raw with sandpaper. It was lucky for him, then, that filming had finished for the holidays, and he didn't have to power through every scene in fear of giving someone, most likely Astrid, the plague.

Sunday, he curls up on his hotel room bed, fully prepared for a whole day of feeling sorry for himself. His friends seem to have other ideas, as they've all decided to make camp in his room, determined to bother him.

He shrouds himself in his blanket, covering his head. "Can't you all just leave me alone?" he says, his voice muffled.

"Aww, don't you like us anymore, Hiccup?" Fishlegs says, grinning as he pokes the lump of blankets that is Hiccup.

"You've become really mouthy since this production started," Hiccup grumbles, his face still tucked away.

"Oh, I wonder who I got it from."

Hiccup makes a noise that sounds a lot like 'hmmmph,' but says nothing more after that.

"What's even wrong with you, Hiccup?" Snotlout says.

"I'm sick!" comes the disgruntled wheeze from the bed.

The boys laugh. No sympathy, no sympathy at all.

"Yeah, lovesick," Fishlegs mutters.

Hiccup pulls down the blanket a little so that the top of his head, his eyes and his nose pop out of the top. He glares daggers at his friends.

"What did you just say?"

Fishlegs shrugs, casting his gaze away from Hiccup. "Nothing."

"Are you sure you're sick, Hiccup?" Snotlout says. "Sure you're not just wearing yourself out… thinking too hard, about something… or someone?"

Tuffnut ignores the subtext and goes straight for it. "He's in love," he says, smugly.

Hiccup rips the blanket away from his head and sits up. "Don't bring that kind of talk in here," he says. Then there's a pause. "What do you mean 'in love'?"

"You. You're in love. It's written all over your face," Fishlegs says, a grin spreading across his face.

"Don't know what you're talking about," Hiccup mutters, covering his head with the blanket once more.

"Oh, so you haven't been going out of your way to be nice to a certain someone, recently?" Fishlegs says.

"Or been looking at yourself in every mirror you see?" Snotlout snorts.

"Not at all trying to impress anyone," Fishlegs says, folding his arms and grinning.

Great. Tag-teamed by Fishlegs and Snotlout, of all people. The day they teamed up, was a sad, sad day for human kind.

"That's it," Hiccup says, flinging the blankets off him and grabbing a hoodie from the floor. "I'm done."

He pulls the hoodie over himself and marches towards the door.

"Where are you even going?" Snotlout says.

"Anywhere away from here. I don't have to sit through this teasing," he says, stuffing his hands in his pockets and leaving the room.

He can hear their gales of laughter from down the hallway.

* * *

Astrid holes herself up in her hotel room, wondering if it's possible to avoid every single human until the production is finished. Of course, that'd mean having to skip out on all of the rest of her scenes… maybe they could just recreate her image with CGI or something…

She groans and presses her hands in front of her face. No. She refuses to let this stop her from living her life as she always has. Why should it stop her?

The earth shattering revelation that Hiccup Haddock liked her had shaken Astrid up, taken everything she knew and turned it upside down. What was she supposed to do now? She didn't want to date Hiccup. Frankly, the thought made her want to gag. Hiccup – the guy who had done nothing but argue with her for years? She wouldn't date him, not if someone paid her.

And that's so not how you're supposed to act when you like someone. It was like they were five years old and he was pulling her pig-tails to try and get her attention. They'd met in college, for heaven's sake. They were past all of this.

No. She does _not_ like Hiccup, and she does _not_ want to date him, not in this lifetime or the next.

No matter how green his eyes are.

* * *

Girly nights with friends are just what Astrid needs. She feels like a teenager again, wearing pyjamas in the late afternoon, eating popcorn and watching whatever terrible movies they can find on the hotel television. She, Cami, Heather and Ruffnut crowd on Astrid's bed, and Astrid is happy to relax for the first time in a while.

"So, Heather," Cami says, stretching her arm over behind her friend's back. "You got your eye on anyone?"

Heather quirks her eyebrow at Cami and Astrid swears she sees her wink. Oh, no. These two are up to something.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Heather says. "Bet you don't even know my type."

Cami strokes her chin, as if thinking carefully. "Hmm? Blondes? Long-ish hair? Kinda skinny? Oh wait, Astrid's the one that likes skinny guys, right, Astrid?"

Astrid frowns. "…I've never said that?"

"Sure you have," Ruffnut says, grinning as she gets wind of Cami's game. "You're always talking about how you prefer a little less muscle."

"I am not!"

Cami raises her eyebrows and pats Astrid on the shoulder. "If you say so, dear cousin."

There's a pause while everyone goes back to chewing on popcorn, and watching the TV. Then, Cami lets out an ungodly noise, something like a yelp combined with a twitch of her shoulders. Astrid mutes the sound, and everyone turns to look at Cami, concerned.

"Sorry," Cami mutters. "I'm fine, it was just a hiccup."

Heather pats her on the back. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, probably just drank something too quickly."

Astrid narrows her eyes at the two of them. Yeah, they're definitely up to something.

That's it for a little while, before they run out of food, and Heather goes to microwave something. They don't hear from her from a while until she makes an irritated sound, and hits the machine.

"You okay?" Cami calls.

Heather heads back over to them holding their now warm food. "Yeah, just a little hiccup with the microwave."

"Okay, okay," Astrid says, standing up and facing all of them. "I see what you're all doing here."

"Oh? What are we doing?" Cami says, glancing around between Heather and Ruffnut and then back at Astrid.

"Nothing, just that Hiccup has come up about twenty times in the last twenty minutes!" Astrid says.

Cami raises an eyebrow. "Astrid, you're the one that brought him up. You're the one that's thinking about him."

She ends her sentence with a smirk and Astrid smiles back, tilting her head to the side. "Okay, if that's the way you want to play it."

She launches herself at Cami, and the two of them end up rolling around on the floor in a wrestle tickle war, the two of them shaking with laughter. Ruffnut and Heather watch from above on the bed, sharing the popcorn as they watch the two cousins play fight.

"Okay, okay," Cami says, between breaths. She holds her arms up in surrender. "You win, you win."

Astrid smiles, smug. "That's what I thought."

"You definitely like Hiccup, though."

Cami bolts up off the floor and out of the room, shrieking with laughter as Astrid jumps up after her.


	12. A Spanner In The Works

The last event before everyone goes home for Christmas is a press event; pretty much nobody is looking forward to it. Essentially, the last event before they can all relax involves dressing perfectly, smiling a lot and being polite to everyone, none of which any of the cast are particularly eager to do.

The event is a large party, with a whole host of journalists and cameras. The cast and crew swaps between tables, answering similar questions from each little group of interviewers. It's tedious, and most of the crew are anxious to get the whole thing over as soon as possible so they can get back to their families.

Cami's taking it the worst. She's always hated the idea that actresses have to be at their best 100% of the time. Astrid had a war with her this morning, when they tried to fit Cami into her dress and tame her hair. It didn't work – her hair still manages to be somehow vaguely tangled and her dress a little crumpled.

The two link arms, fully prepared to spend the whole evening together whispering quips in each other's ears, but fate once again gets in the way, and Astrid is strictly told that she has to spend the whole evening with Hiccup. Great. Just what she wanted.

Cami grins. "Well, Astrid, I guess I'll see you later," she says, backing away.

"If you leave me here with him, I swear I'm cutting you out of my will," she hisses, but Cami's already gone.

"Hey, Astrid." Hiccup appears out of nowhere, scratching the back of his head.

He doesn't look half bad. He scrubs up well in his suit and tie, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Wait, did she just call Hiccup attractive? Okay, back track, back track.

She scowls. "Hey, Hiccup."

"Let's get this over with," he says, offering her his arm. She doesn't take it.

His arm awkwardly hovers in the air and he slides his arm up so his hand can scratch the back of his head again. Smooth.

"Expect a ridiculous amount of questions on the nature of our relationship," Astrid says under her breath.

"Send me a sign and I'll pull the fire alarm and get us all out of here," Hiccup mutters.

A smile threatens to tug at Astrid's lips. "You'd get arrested for the waste of emergency services," she says, matter-of-factly.

"Worth it to get out of this."

She's not smiling. She's definitely not smiling.

* * *

You'd have to put her at gun point to make her admit it, but Astrid's not having an awful time at the press event. The interviewers ask inane questions, of course, but Hiccup keeps making quips under his breath that definitely aren't funny. In fact, they're so not funny she's having trouble stopping herself from laughing.

Finally, their interview stint is done with and they start milling around amongst everyone else, holding glasses of champagne and talking with the guests.

"Look, I gotta go," she says to Hiccup. "I've got to find Cami and make sure she hasn't accidentally slipped a laxative into an unsuspecting journalist's drink."

"Would she do that?" Hiccup says, raising an eyebrow.

"I wouldn't put it past her," she says. Before she can think about what she's going to say next, she says "See you later."

It's not until she's moved a few steps before she realises what she's said. _See you later?_ Did she just imply that she wanted to see him again? Had she just enjoyed the two hours she'd spent in Hiccup's company?

Nope, end this thought process, right here. She's not going to think about that. She's going to find Cami, and she's not going to think about this.

She cranes her neck, searching the crowd for her cousin, but in the swathe of people she can't see her. Astrid scouts the hall, sliding her away through all the different people. She stands on her tip-toes, and finally spots Cami talking to Snotlout.

She hurries over towards them, and gets there just in time to hear something she hoped would never happen.

"You're gay?!" Snotlout blurts.

 _Oh, no._

 _This can't be happening_.

The hall falls silent and somehow all eyes – and all cameras – turn to the two of them.

Cami blinks and takes a step back. "No. I'm not gay. Why would you-"

"I saw you and Heather, that camera woman, kissing."

Suddenly the room is a flurry of action, the journalists are crowding Cami and people are shouting questions at her. They push in front of Astrid, and she tries to get through to her cousin, but people jostle her and she's pushed out of the way.

Cami stands in the midst of it all, looking for all the world like a deer caught in headlights, trying to speak but letting out no more than stutter. Cami Hofferson, who always had a word to say about everything, who always had a quip or a pun to make, who talked faster than light when you got her started, was rendered unable to speak.

Astrid starts to get mad, frantically pushing people to the side so that she can get to her cousin, when she feels a hand on her shoulder. It's Hiccup.

"I'll get the cameras out the way, you just get Cami out of here," he says.

And then he yells. "EVERYONE OUT, NOW."

His voice is surprisingly loud for someone so small, and everyone turns to look at him. "This is one interview you're not going to get," he says firmly, when everyone's eyes are on him.

Hiccup begins to usher all the cameras out of there, snapping at any disgruntled journalists that dare protest. As soon as they begin to move, Astrid darts towards Cami and pulls her out of the crowd.

"C'mon," she says. "We'll get you back to your room. Let's go."

She pulls Cami away and out of the room. The girl barely makes any acknowledgement that they're leaving, she just keeps staring straight ahead, her face blank.

As they leave, Astrid turns to see Hiccup staring straight at her. He nods, and then turns back to the crowd, pushing the last few out the door.


	13. An Awkward Alliance

It's been twelve hours and she's still wearing the same dress she had on last night. Her hair is falling out of her neat braid and her make up is smudged everywhere. She's sitting cross-legged, her back leaning straight up against the wall, next to the door he knows belongs to Cami.

"Astrid, did you go to bed last night?" Hiccup says, moving down to sit down beside her.

On que, Astrid yawns, rubbing gunk out of her eyes. "No. I stayed to make sure she was okay, but she wanted to be alone. I just… don't want to be too far away in case she needs me."

"Are you saying you've been sitting out here all night?" he says.

Astrid nods, and says nothing more.

Hiccup rakes his hand through his hair and sighs. "You need to get some sleep, Astrid."

"No," she says, forcefully. "I need to stay out here and make sure that I'm here if she needs me."

"Okay," he says, raising his hands in surrender. "I can go if you want me to."

It's silent for a moment.

"No," Astrid says. "You can stay."

He gives a small smile at that, and gets himself comfortable on the floor. There's another long silence as the two of them sit there outside the door. There's so much between them that's gone unspoken, so many things that they haven't addressed. If it were any other time, Astrid would want to talk about them, but right now, her only concern is Cami.

"You know she has nightmares about being outed," Astrid says, breaking the silence. "She likes to pretend that she isn't afraid of anything, but I've been there when she's been up all night worrying about it. She's always been so afraid that she'll accidentally let it slip in an interview. This is like a living nightmare for her."

He places his hand on hers. "We'll figure something out," he says.

She stares down at where his fingers are rested atop hers, and it occurs to her that this is the first time they've touched outside of filming. This is the first time their hands have been connected as Astrid and Hiccup and not as Romeo and Juliet. This is the first time they've touched as each other, and not under some costume or disguise.

She doesn't know how to feel.

Astrid takes her hand away and lets it rest in her lap. Hiccup gives a mumbled apology that she doesn't acknowledge.

It's quiet again, and the two of them just sit there, and it feels wrong. It feels wrong because she and Hiccup are supposed to argue. That's what they do. They make quips and they insult each other and they don't get on.

Yet here they are, not talking, not arguing and it's too quiet and it feels wrong.

Astrid breaks the silence with drawn out yawn.

"Okay, Astrid, you have got to get some sleep," Hiccup says. "Look, go back to your room, and take a nap. I'll stay out here, and if Cami comes out, I'll tell her where you are."

"I can't," she says. "I've got to stay out here."

"At least go and take a shower and change your clothes," Hiccup says. "You'll be more comfortable. Astrid, please. I'll stay out here until you get back."

She thinks about it, fully prepared to snap and tell him that she has to stay. Then she stops, and bites her tongue.

"Okay," she says. "But I'm only going to take a shower. Then I'm coming straight back."

"Okay," Hiccup says. "And I'll stay here for as long as you want me to."

She nods and begins to walk away. She's halfway down the hall before she turns and comes back up to him.

"Hiccup?" she says.

"Mmm?"

"Thank you. For last night. I'm not sure I could have got rid of that crowd without you," she says. "So… thanks."

He looks up at her, his eyes shining. "Anytime, Astrid."

* * *

She really does mean to take a shower and then go straight back to Cami's room. But when she gets to her room, the bed is just so inviting. She hasn't slept in God knows how long, and everything aches. After her shower, she collapses onto the bed without really thinking, drifting straight off to sleep.

When she wakes five hours later, she hurries back to Cami's room, cursing herself for letting herself sleep for so long. Hiccup is still there, sitting cross-legged beside the door.

"Sorry," she mumbles as she sits down. "I fell asleep. I didn't mean to be gone for so long."

"Hey, it's okay. I'm glad you slept," Hiccup says. "Although, I've got some bad news."

"Oh?"

With a grim look, he hands her his phone. When she's sees what's on it, she swears.

His phone is opened up on an internet search, which reveals hundreds of online news articles, all commenting on the reveal of Cami Hofferson's sexuality. After she passes the phone back to Hiccup, she groans and tosses her head into her hands.

"Don't they have more important news to report?" she says, her teeth clenched.

"I know, it's ridiculous."

Astrid drums her fingers on the carpet floor. "We have to talk to Finn about this. He's her father and the director, surely there's some kind of damage control he can do."

So, together they go, off to find Finn to see what he can do.

* * *

"Sorry, I can't do anything about this."

Astrid all but slams her hands on the desk between them. "Why not? Can't you issue a statement saying that it was a mistake?"

Finn scoffs. "Don't be naïve, Astrid. Now that the news is out there, it's out there to stay."

She sits back in her seat and scowls, but says nothing.

"Besides, she could've been more careful. When I told her to keep her little gay thing a secret…"

Hiccup winces. This was the nuclear bomb of things that would make Astrid's fuse blow.

"What the fuck?" Astrid yells, cutting him off before he can even finish his sentence.

She stands up, and slams her fist on the table. "Tell me right now that was a joke," Astrid hisses. "Tell me right now that was a shitty, distasteful joke."

"Astrid, this isn't at all appropriate. You can't speak to me like this."

"No," she says, at this point so worked up that tears are coming to her eyes. "You don't get to say that. You don't get to dictate how I speak to you right now. You should be caring about your fucking daughter, who just got outed in front of all those film journalists, who are now going to pry into her private life and make endless speculations about her. I thought she was keeping it a secret of her own accord, but apparently, you've been meddling too."

Her fingers grip in her hair, and she wants to say so much more, there's so much she wants to yell about right now, but she just can't put into words. Instead, she stomps her foot and makes a loud noise of frustration. A part of her kicks herself for sounding like her old six year old self, throwing a tantrum instead of expressing her feelings.

But right now, she wants to scream. Cami deserves so much better than what she's getting.

"You know what?" she says. "I can't even fucking be here right now."

Then she storms out the room. Hiccup runs after her.


	14. Fury

It's Christmas, and the hotel is empty. Everyone in the cast and crew have dispersed, returning home to their families. Cami told Astrid firmly that she would not be going back to her father's home as planned, but instead stay in the hotel for another two weeks. Finn's not speaking to Cami. As far as he's concerned, she should not have got caught with another woman, and it's for her to deal with the repercussions.

Astrid doesn't want her to be alone, but Cami doesn't want to talk either, so she finds herself at a loss for things to do. She doesn't want to be too far away from her cousin in case she needs her, so she doesn't leave the hotel, but there's nothing much to do here either.

She sits in her room, her arms around her legs, thinking about how alone she feels and then feeling guilty for feeling bad when Cami's over in her room probably feeling worse.

She resigns herself to the fact that she's going to be alone for most of the day, there's a knock at her door.

Hiccup's there behind the door, scratching the back of his head, his gaze on the floor.

"Hey," she says, standing aside so he can come inside the room. "What are you still doing here?"

She still doesn't know how she feels about Hiccup. All that anger and resentment she has about him still flickers around her brain, but it feels so misplaced now. Like, it wasn't really him she was angry at all this time. Seeing him dart straight in to help Cami, no question about it, makes her feel a little like she may have mis-judged him. But only a little.

Hiccup settles himself cross-legged on her bed. "Well, my apartment's kind of empty and lonely. And my father and I… we aren't really the best of pals, so I didn't want to go back there," he says, pausing for a moment after that admission. "And I heard that you were still here, so…"

His voice trails away, as if the end of the sentence had just run away from him.

"Yeah," Astrid says, sitting down beside him. "Cami and I were supposed to go back to Finn's for Christmas, but that's not happening now."

"How is she?"

Astrid shakes her head. "I don't know. She won't talk to me. I think she doesn't want to act afraid in front of me. She'd rather that I wasn't there to see her upset."

The room falls quiet, as Astrid chews on her lip and stares down at her hands in her lap.

"That's why I came," Hiccup says. "So that you weren't as sad or alone."

"I don't think you can make me feel any less sad," Astrid says quietly, looking away from him.

There's a pause.

"I don't want you to feel sad," Hiccup says.

Astrid smiles and shakes her head, arranging her pillows and leaning on the headboard behind her. "It's not your fault that I feel like crap. I just wish – I wish I could have got there before he said it. Stopped all those cameras and journalists from hearing it."

"Me too," Hiccup says, looking down at his hands and fiddling with his fingers. He looks like he wants to say something more, but he doesn't.

There's another silence.

"I just feel so guilty," Astrid says, her voice small and far away. "I'm sitting here feeling so sorry for myself when she's the one who's actually going through all the shit."

"Astrid, she's family. You're allowed to feel bad that she's feeling bad."

She sighs, pulling a pillow to her chest and resting her chin atop it.

Hiccup watches and reaches out to her, but seems to think better of it halfway through, leaving his hand hovering in the air for the moment before letting rest on the bed.

"We'll figure something out," he says. "We'll find a way to make things better for her."

"I don't see how, Hiccup. I'm furious at him," she says, her fingers clenching around the pillow. "I can't believe he outed her in front of everybody. It was the one thing she was so careful about and Snotlout broke all of that in a matter of seconds."

Hiccup frowns. "Believe me, Astrid, I'm not at all impressed with him either."

Silence falls again, and the two of them look down away from each other, down at their hands.

"Astrid, there's something I need to-" Hiccup says, at the same time that Astrid mutters "He needs to pay."

"What?" Hiccup says, his eyes flickering up to look at her, forgetting about everything he was just about to say.

"Hiccup, Cami's in her room, dealing with the fact that every popular news site is talking about her sexuality, she's afraid of what people will say to her, and most of all, she doesn't want anyone to see under that exterior of hers. She's not leaving her room, I don't know if she's eating, I don't know if she's looking after herself," she says, her voice rising. "I'm just so angry that he's done this to her. I want him to feel what she feels right now."

Astrid groans, pressing her face into the pillow. "I want him to hurt. I want to…" she exhales, the sound slightly muffled by the pillow in her face. "Rip out his heart and eat it. I don't know."

She knows she's being over dramatic, but that's how she wants to be. She wants to come up with all kind of delightful revenge plots, the kind that he'll never recover from. He hurt Cami, and _no one_ hurts Cami, not on Astrid's watch.

"You know that's not the answer," Hiccup says, his voice soft.

Astrid doesn't say anything, her head still rested in the pillow. She knows he's right, but it wasn't the answer she wanted.

"Some Christmas this turned out to be," Astrid mutters.

Hiccup smiles without mirth, opens his mouth to say something and then closes it again.

* * *

The holidays end, and people begin to leak back into the hotel. Astrid pointedly avoids all contact with Snotlout and only speaks to Finn when she has to – communicating with curt nods and monosyllabic words.

Filming resumes, and, for the first time since production began, the only person Astrid can bear to speak any civil words to is Hiccup.

Cami still won't come out of her room.


	15. Fuse

_"_ _But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?"_

It's fitting that this is the scene that they resume their filming with. For once, Hiccup finds himself letting all of his emotions into the words he speaks, instead of just pretending those emotions are there. It feels less like he's working on autopilot and more like he's actually in the moment.

Seeing her, up there on the balcony the crew had created, lost in her thoughts as Juliet, Hiccup thinks to himself that he's never felt more on set than he does today.

" _It is my lady. Oh, it is my love. Oh, that she knew she were!"_

Hiccup feels more like Romeo than he's ever felt before.

* * *

When Hiccup walks into his hotel room to find Snotlout sitting on his bed, he almost turns around and walks out again. There's nothing he _wants_ to say to Snotlout, but so much that he's _got_ to. No one else is going to say it to him, and he fears that Astrid would cause bodily harm if she tried.

So he grits his teeth, steels himself for the conversation and enters the room, sitting next to where Snotlout is splayed out across the bed.

"Cheer me up, Hiccup," Snotlout says, staring off into space. "I'm sad."

Hiccup bites back a sigh. " _You're_ sad?"

"The first girl that I've liked in ages, and she turns out to be a lesbian," Snotlout says.

"That's it. Up," Hiccup says, slapping at Snotlout and pushing him up and off the bed. "Get off my bed, now."

"Hiccup, what are you doing?" Snotlout whines, but complies, getting up off the bed and hovering in the middle of the room.

"I don't really feel like talking right now," Hiccup says, his teeth gritted.

He refuses to look at Snotlout, and stares down into his lap, trying not to blow a fuse.

"Hiccup please," Snotlout says. "No one else will talk to me about this. Astrid's been glaring daggers at me all day."

He's about to say something more, but Hiccup cuts him off. "Did you really think that it was okay?"

"Think what was okay?"

He genuinely doesn't seem to have any idea what he's done wrong, and Hiccup is so glad Astrid is not here right now. If this was infuriating him, then it would enrage her.

"To out Cami in front of all those cameras. To blurt out that she's gay," Hiccup says, his hands clenched into fists on his bed.

Snotlout shrugs. "I didn't mean anything by it!" he says. "I was just surprised, that's all."

"Did you have to ask her in front of everybody?" Hiccup says.

Snotlout's eyes flicker down to the floor as he shrugs a second time. "…I don't know."

Hiccup shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. "Man, this is why I told you not to ask her out," he says.

Snotlout processes that and frowns. "Wait, you knew she was gay?"

"Yeah. We were at university together, remember?" Hiccup says, rolling his eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

Hiccup feels ice shoot through his veins as he stands up off the bed. "Because it's human fucking decency not to out people without their permission!"

He doesn't realise he's yelling until he feels his fists clenching again, and the heat rising through his chest into his head. Snotlout steps back and stares at him, bewildered; he's never seen this from Hiccup before.

Hiccup exhales and unclenches his fists, dropping back down onto the bed. He doesn't need to get overly angry about this. He really doesn't. He doesn't say anything more, just nurses his fist in his hands as if he'd actually thrown a punch.

Snotlout turns away from Hiccup, mumbling something unintelligible.

Then Hiccup hears him mutter "I don't know why Astrid's being so pissy, though."

"Don't talk about her like that," Hiccup says, his voice dangerously quiet.

Snotlout scoffs. "Why are you defending her? You're always going on about how much you don't like her. She's only hanging around you because she feels sorry for you."

That's it. Fuse blown.

"Get out," Hiccup says.

"What?"

"Get the fuck out of my hotel room," he says. "I told you not to talk about her like that."

"I was just-"

"No," Hiccup says. "You weren't just anything. Get. The. Fuck. Out."

Snotlout gets the picture and scarpers. Hiccup stares at the closed door, and wants to scream. Instead, he backs up into his room and falls on his bed.

* * *

" _With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls, for stony limits cannot hold love out."_

She's up there and he's down here, and even though this is all make-believe and in a few hours they'll be back in the same space again, he feels so far away from her. She's looking down at him with her bright blue eyes, her golden hair fluttering down her shoulders and all he can do is let Romeo's lines speak for him.

 _"_ _And what love can do, that dares love attempt. Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me_ _,"_ he says.

He tries to put something more in his words, not just as Romeo but as Hiccup.

He hopes she understands.

* * *

Hiccup lies on his bed, his arms squeezing a pillow to his chest while he stares blankly up at the ceiling. This has been happening far too much lately for Hiccup's liking.

But there's so much that has been changing recently, there's been so many feelings that have been changing, feelings about one person in particular.

He's been thinking about his actions, especially with Snotlout's return. About how he wanted to flip when he talked about her, about how the anger had fired up in him in a way he hasn't experienced for a long time. He thinks about all the scenes he's been shooting, about how all the lines about love are starting to seem a lot less laughable and a lot more real.

But most of all, he thinks about the butterflies that fly around his stomach, and the sweat on his palms, and the way he keeps feeling so dizzyingly high more and more and more.

It's time to do something about it.


	16. Letter

_Dear Astrid,_

 _There's something I need to tell you_ -

* * *

 _Dear Astrid,_

 _Cami told me about the inter-college championships_

* * *

 _Dear Astrid,_

 _I know that we haven't always been on the best of terms_

* * *

This is hopeless.

Hiccup is swimming amongst crumpled up pieces of paper with scribbled out words. His pencil lead is blunt from all the crossing out, and he shudders to think at all the paper he's wasting.

He just doesn't know what to say. That's always been his problem, he supposes.

In the end, he gives up, and lets himself wallow in the pile of paper surrounding him.

"So is this a cry for help or…?"

Hiccup shoots up out of his seat and looks up to see Heather's smirking face. He hurriedly tries to swipe away all the screwed up balls of paper, but he guesses that there's no point trying to hide anything now.

"What are you doing, Hiccup?" Heather says.

He tries to think of an excuse but comes up with nothing, so with a sigh, he tells the truth. "I'm trying to write a letter to the girl I love," he says, deadpan, trying to cover up his sincerity with sarcasm.

"Oh, is it for me?" Heather teases. "I knew you'd come round, eventually."

"Ha," Hiccup says, dryly. "We both know I'm not the one you're interested in."

Heather's face falters for a second, all the teasing falling away from her expression. "Is she okay?"

"I'm sure she's going to be fine," Hiccup says. "She just needs time."

There's a moment of quiet, and then Heather drops herself onto the seat beside him.

"So, what have you got so far?" she says, grabbing one of the pages.

Hiccup darts out and snatches the page away from her. "Nothing! Nothing so far. Only a few words," he rambles.

Heather raises an eyebrow. Hiccup gathers all the pages up.

"Look," he sighs. "Could you please just go and get Astrid for me?"

Heather snorts. "Alright, loverboy. Wait here."

She turns to leave, and Hiccup swears she hears her mutter something like 'lovesick fool'.

* * *

His head is bent, and he's scrawling something on a pad of paper, so absorbed in whatever he's writing that he's completely oblivious to his surroundings. It makes her want to smile somehow, there's something endearing about the way he gets lost in the things he does.

When she hovers beside him, he doesn't seem to notice that she's there, so she coughs once and he jumps straight out of his seat.

"Astrid! Hi, Astrid. Hey," he stammers, turning his pad of paper over and throwing it away from him. "You came."

Astrid grins and takes a seat beside him. "I came," she says in response.

"I didn't think you would," he admits, running a hand through his hair.

"I don't know why you're surprised," Astrid says, something of a teasing smile on her face. "I'm the only person who can stand to hear you talk endlessly."

Hiccup looks at the floor, trying to hide his own smile. "Has that been the case this whole time? You could've fooled me."

"Alright then, since you were so sure that I wouldn't come, I'll stay here until you tell me to leave," she says.

"Don't leave!" Hiccup says quickly.

A grin spreads across Astrid's face. "You said 'leave'!" she says, pretending to stand up and go.

He reaches up and takes her hand, pulling her back down to sit beside him. "No, no, you're not going," he says.

For once, Astrid doesn't mind the contact between them, and lets herself be pulled back by Hiccup, snorting as she sits back down in her chair.

The two glance at each other before looking away, both trying to hide smiles. Then, Hiccup's fades away and his expression changes to something more serious. "Astrid, about the inter-college championships," he starts.

Astrid tips her head back and lets out something between a laugh and a sigh. "Is that what you wanted to talk about, Hiccup?"

"Cami told me about it. Before the whole thing with Snotlout happened," he says.

Astrid sighs, wiping a hand down her face. "Of course she did," she says, shaking her head and staring at the floor. "Hiccup, that was a long time ago now."

"I know, but I just- I didn't realise how much it meant to you, at the time," he says, his fingers tapping on the edge of the chair. "If I'd known, I'd never have said what I said to you. I shouldn't have said it anyway. That was a dick move, and I'm sorry."

Astrid stares at him for a moment. "Apology accepted," she says, after a while.

She means it. It's been years that she's been holding a grudge – years that she's been holding onto this hatred and anger, and now, getting an apology, even just talking about it, feels like a weight off her shoulders.

"Just think," she says, staring up at this ceiling in thought before turning to look at him. "All of this time we could have been friends, instead of fighting."

 _Or we could be more than that_ , a little voice in her head says.

What with Cami's current situation, Astrid's been finding herself alone a lot, recently, which has given her far too much time to think certain things over. Certain things in particular being that of her co-star and her feelings towards him.

It had been a lot to take in, all of these changing feelings – from resentment to friendship to… something else. She knows that he likes her, or she at least, her friends said that he liked her. Whether she could trust that or not, she still wasn't sure.

She's still not so sure about relationships and what with all the things that have been happening with Cami, she's not sure that she wants to start something new right now.

She'd be lying if she said she didn't like Hiccup, though.

The silence is broken when Hiccup speaks.

"How's Cami?"

The smile falls away from Astrid's face. "Not good," she says, staring down at her feet.

"How are you?"

Astrid shrugs, listlessly. "Also not good."

"I'm sorry," Hiccup says. "It sucks that things aren't great at the moment for you. Especially because it's you, and you're so… you deserve so much better than all this misery. And… and I'm sorry if I was ever the cause of that misery."

She just looks at him and stares, because she doesn't know what else to say. They sit there in silence, until someone from across the room calls Astrid's name. She gets up and is about to say goodbye to Hiccup, when he says something that makes her stop.

"Astrid?"

"Mmm?"

"All it takes is one little word or one little smile from you - one little sign that I matter to you - and it makes the whole day worth it."

She almost kisses him right then and there, but her name is called again, and all she can do is utter a quick goodbye and hurry away.

* * *

" _My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite_."

It was fitting, Astrid thought, how Juliet's words were leaking into her own. She'd never played a part where she found the words so fitting to her own situation. And for it to be _Romeo and Juliet_ of all things, a play that she never in a million years thought she'd ever identify with, was a shock in itself to her.

It had become clear to Astrid that she couldn't keep all of this stuff buried in the deepest corner of her mind anymore. There was too much that she was feeling, too much on the tip of her tongue, too much that she was so close to saying but couldn't quite say.

So when she goes back to the hotel that night, after all the feeling is done, she takes out a pad of paper and a pen, and begins to write.


	17. Missing

" _Therefore love moderately. Long love doth so. Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow."_

Astrid runs in from the side of the set and is swept up into Hiccup's arms as the Friar speaks. Her head rests in the crook of his neck, the two of them swaying as the Friar's words wash over them.

" _Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy be heaped like mine, and that thy skill be more to blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath. This neighbor air, and let rich music's tongue unfold the imagined happiness that both receive in either by this dear encounter_ ," Hiccup says, his hands resting either side of her chin.

Astrid knows she's past the point of pretending that she still has any kind of malice towards Hiccup. They're not enemies anymore, but they're not friends. He's her…something. She just doesn't know what that something is.

" _But my true love is grown to such excess, I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth."_

She's starting to feel awfully wired when she's around him, like electricity is passing through her veins when she touches him.

It's quite distracting, really.

* * *

She hasn't seen Cami in days, and it's starting to worry her.

Astrid's been outside her door every single day, knocking and calling for Cami to let her in, but she hasn't been getting any response. It's not going to be too long before all the filming is over, and she wants Cami to be there when they're done.

She misses her cousin.

On the fifth day with no answer from Cami, she decides to do something about it.

* * *

Hiccup's woken from his afternoon nap by someone knocking loudly on his door and yelling his name. He stumbles from his bed still half asleep, his limbs aching from where he's slept in an awkward position.

He opens the door and blinks bleary eyed at Astrid, whose face is stricken, her hand twisted in her hair.

"Astrid, what's going-"

"Cami's gone missing," she says, before he can say anything else. "I was worried about her, so I went and asked reception if they could let me into her room to check on her and when I got there she wasn't there."

She's babbling now, and she hasn't taken a breath since she started the sentence.

"Hey, hey, hey," Hiccup says, fully awake now that Astrid's upset.

He reaches out and takes her hands away from her face, gently pulling them down to the side, so he can look her in the eyes.

"It's going to be fine," he says. "Cami's an adult, she can look after herself, wherever she is. We'll call her and let her know we're worried."

Hiccup leads her back into his room and the two of them sit on his bed, Astrid's hands covering her face. She breathes in and out deeply before giving one long sigh.

"Sorry for freaking out on you," she says. "I'm just really worried about her, wherever she is. She's never been this alone before."

"She's going to be fine," Hiccup says. "I know she's going through a bad time at the moment, but if there's one thing I know about Cami, it's that she can take all of this in her stride. It might take some time, but I know she can bounce back from this. I'm sure wherever she is, she's working it out."

Astrid stares down at her fingers. "I hope you're right, Hiccup," she says, her voice quiet.

* * *

Word travelled fast about Cami's apparent disappearance.

Everyone, of course, knew about the incident at the press party between Snotlout and Cami. A few had been divided on their thoughts; most didn't care about her sexuality and believed that Snotlout should have kept what he saw to himself. Some though, leaned more towards Snotlout's side. Astrid didn't hesitate to put those people in their places.

But everyone, even those who were on Cami's side, didn't hesitate to speculate about where she might be. Hiccup did his best to put a stop to any rumours, lest Astrid get wind of them. He really didn't want her to get upset about this. Hiccup found himself spending a lot of time telling people that on no accounts were they to repeat anything they had said about Cami in front of Astrid.

He said it was for their benefit, but he was lying.

* * *

Snotlout's in Hiccup's room again.

Hiccup's still not sure how he feels about Snotlout. He's still angry, sure, he's furious. There's something so… ignorant about Snotlout. He just doesn't seem to understand at all why his actions would hurt someone else. It's infuriating, and somehow, a little sad.

"Hiccup," Snotlout says. "Do you think Cami left because of me?"

"Yes," Hiccup says, his voice deadpan.

He's not in the mood to break anything gently to Snotlout. Why should he have to educate him on things he should have learned years ago?

"I just don't understand what I did," Snotlout says.

His voice isn't indignant anymore, it isn't stuck in this sense of self-righteousness, it's just sort of sad, and lost.

Hiccup sighs and rubs a hand across her face. "You didn't know Cami was gay, because she didn't want you to know. She didn't want anyone to know, and you revealed it in front of paparazzi. She's under scrutiny from everyone right now, and she's afraid of what people will say about her if they see her in the street. You basically made her afraid to go outside."

"Oh," Snotlout says.

His voice is low and struck with a certain kind of realization.

"I've been an idiot, haven't I?" he says.

"Yep."

"What do I do now?"

Hiccup resists the urge to groan as he drops himself onto his bed, his head in his hands.

"You stop making it about you," he says. "You apologise publicly, you admit that you did wrong, and you expect nothing back from her."

As the words leave his mouth, he wonders if he's really the one qualified to say all of this.

* * *

He's not filming today, but she is.

Technically, he's not even supposed to be on set, but he doesn't have anywhere else to be or anything else to do.

" _Give me my Romeo. And when I shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun_."

Her eyes flicker up over to him, just for a moment, before flickering back in the direction she's supposed to be looking. For a split second, their eyes connect.

But just for a split second.


	18. Finally

The interviewers arrived on a Friday. The whole cast knew they would; it was only a matter of time before they showed up, poking their noses around for gossip they didn't need. As soon as Hiccup heard they were hovering about, he tensed and made to tell them sharply to get the hell out. He was stopped before he could, by none other than Snotlout.

"Let me talk to them," he had said, pushing Hiccup out of the way.

* * *

"There has been an uproar over something I said about Cami Hofferson," on-screen Snotlout says. "Something that I shouldn't have said, not in private and certainly not in front of a dozen cameras. I can't take back what I said, so I'm not going to deny it, but I will say that I am truly sorry for any upset that I caused, either to Cami or to anyone else who was affected by it. I can't expect forgiveness, all I want to do is say that Cami, wherever you are, I am so sorry for what I did. It was wrong, and I shouldn't have done it."

Snotlout looks into the cameras, straight into them, as if he's talking to Cami face to face and not through a TV screen.

Hiccup and Astrid are sitting alone, watching the television. They sit inches apart, not touching.

"What did you say to him?" Astrid says, her voice laced with surprise.

Hiccup shrugs. "He finally realised he'd done something wrong. I just… pushed him into doing something to fix it."

"Well, I guess it's up to Cami now," she says, shifting back into her seat. "I hope she comes back soon."

"Yeah," Hiccup says. "Me, too."

* * *

" _God joined my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands. And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo sealed, shall be the label to another deed, or my true heart with treacherous revolt turn to another, this shall slay them both._ "

She's beautiful. She's just so perfectly beautiful, and he doesn't even try to swallow that thought any more. He's spending more and more hours watching her on set, even when he doesn't need to be there. The more he's near her, the more he feels like he's falling under a spell, and he never wants it to stop.

If he doesn't say something soon, he feels like he might explode.

* * *

A day passes before Astrid touches her phone. It's about as long as she can stand, and as soon as those twenty-four hours are up, she snatches up her phone and taps in Cami's number. It goes to voicemail, just as she had expected, but that's okay. Astrid knows what she wants to say.

"Cami," she says, tucking her knees up to her chin and pressing the phone into her ear. "It's Astrid. I know things are shitty right now, but I really miss you. I know it's hard, but this isn't you, Cami. Cami doesn't cower. Cami marches into a room and fills it up, and dares anyone to tell her that she shouldn't. The Cami I know just wouldn't disappear. ...Look, take as much time as you like, but we're all having drinks tonight in the hotel bar. Just the crew. Just so you know. If you wanted to come. Everyone would be really happy to see you."

She presses end call and then lets her hand drift to her side. There's so much more that she wants to say to her cousin, but she can't fit it all in a small voicemail.

There's a soft knock at the door, and Hiccup pokes his head around it.

"You ready to go?" he says.

Astrid shifts off the bed. "Yeah. Let's go."

* * *

The whole cast and crew is there, all of them a rowdy bunch, as usual. Astrid feels a strange rush of affection as she enters the room; it's cheesy and cliché to say, but these people really have become her family. The crowd cheers as Astrid and Hiccup join the table, and everyone scoots over to give them space.

"I wanted to give a toast to Cami," Astrid says, when the rabble settles down. "I hope that wherever she is, she's feeling better and ready to come back soon."

Everyone raises their glasses, and they all call out Cami's name, and take big swigs of their drinks.

"What, so you're all going to toast me without me here? So rude."

Everyone turns to the sound of the voice, and sure enough, there is Cami, standing with her hair flicked out of her face, and her mouth twisted into a shit-eating grin.

Astrid's up and out of her seat in a flash, her arms flying around Cami, pulling her into a hug.

"Long time no see," Cami says into her ear. "In the end you were right, Astrid. Running away and hiding isn't me."

"Where did you go?" Astrid says, breathless, her arms still tight around Cami's shoulders.

Cami takes a small step back, her hands on Astrid's shoulders. "I went to go and see Mum."

"Bertha?" Astrid says, breaking out into a smile.

Cami's eyes twinkle. "Yeah. Bertha."

Bertha was a legend amongst all who knew her. She and Finn had divorced long ago, something that bothered neither mother nor daughter. Bertha was a powerhouse - she commanded space and everyone knew her word was law. Astrid and Cami had been in awe of the woman since they had been very young, both of them striving to be more like her.

Besides Astrid, Bertha was the woman Cami went to when she really needed help.

The two grin again, the both of them so caught up in each other that they don't see Snotlout coming up from behind them.

"Er, Cami?" Snotlout says. "Can I talk to you for a sec?"

Cami turns to Snotlout and flashes him a smile. Then she punches him squarely in the stomach.

"Don't you ever out anyone again," she says. "That's not okay."

Snotlout doubles over, his arms wrapped around his belly. "Message received," he wheezes.

"Good," Cami says, swapping her sadistic smile for something more genuine. "Guess we're even now."

Despite his pain, Snotlout manages to look up and smile back.

Once that's all done with, Heather is the next to stand up. She says nothing, in favour of walking straight towards Cami and encircling the other girl in her arms. The two wander over towards the corner of the room, and Astrid watches them go, idly wondering to herself how she had missed what was going on between the two of them all this time.

She slips back into her seat, her shoulder brushing with Hiccup's.

"Okay?" Hiccup says.

"Yeah," Astrid says, a soft smile spreading across her face. "Better than okay, actually."

The spell is broken, and the tension that had been clouding the air vanishes. Chatter fills the air as everyone goes back to their conversations. Astrid lets the lull of voices wash over her, and finds herself easily engrossed in something Hiccup is saying. So engrossed, in fact, that she doesn't notice Cami wandering back over towards them with something of a glint in her eye.

"Soooo," Cami says, dragging out the word as she drops herself on the seat next to Astrid.

She sits with her back to the table, leaning back so that she can look over to the two people sitting beside her, a grin spreading across her face.

 _This can't be good_ , is Astrid's immediate thought.

"What's going on here then?"

 _And there it is._

Both of their heads snap up and they shuffle away from each other, Astrid pushing her fringe out of her eyes and Hiccup's hand raking through his hair.

"Nothing," they both say in unison, glancing up at each other before looking away again.

Astrid coughs. "Nothing," she says again. "What? Nothing. No. What are you talking about?"

"Oh really?" Cami says, raising her eyebrows. "So you don't like each other, then?"

Astrid doesn't answer, in favour of staring down into her lap. Cami turns her gaze to Hiccup, whose face immediately contorts into a panicked expression.

"I don't like her any more than I'm supposed to," he stammers.

Astrid cocks an eyebrow, casting an unreadable look over towards Hiccup.

"You don't?" she says.

Hiccup holds up his hands, faltering again as he stutters "what I mean is that I-"

Cami cuts him off, her eyes gleaming as she turns to Astrid. "So, you don't like him then?"

Astrid regards Hiccup with a questioning eye, before tossing her hair back and looking away from him. "No," she says. "Not in the slightest."

"Well, Astrid," Cami says. "Dear cousin. Best friend. What do you have to say about this?"

In her hands she's holding up a scrunched up piece of paper, twirling it around in her fingers.

Oh.

 _That little shit_.

Astrid doesn't say anything, she just lunges towards Cami, her arm stretching out to reach the paper, but Cami, small as she is, clambers up onto the table, holding it high above her head. Everyone's attention is on them now, and neither Astrid nor Cami seem to notice the whole room has gone silent.

"Here, Hiccup, to you!" Cami yells, while Astrid attempts to bring her down.

She throws the ball over Astrid's head, and it lands neatly in Hiccup's lap.

"No!" Astrid screeches, but it's too late, Hiccup's already opening up the paper and reading what's on it.

* * *

 _Dear Hiccup,_

 _I know that in the past few years we haven't exactly been friends. In fact, there have been times where I've done everything I could to make you miserable. It's only recently that I've realised that all of my anger was misplaced, and that maybe my feelings weren't what I thought they were, and that maybe they were something else._

 _Over these past few weeks, with everything that's been happening with Cami, you've been the one person that has stuck by my side. I really needed someone to be there, and you always were._

 _I've never been a huge advocate for relationships, in fact, I've always been the exact opposite. For days, I've been thinking that it would be impossible for the two of us. We'd argue, and we'd fight and we'd get on each other's last nerves, but more and more I've been thinking that all of that might be worth it._

 _I guess what I'm trying to say is – I like you. As middle school as that sounds, I really, really do. And, if I'm right, I think you feel the same._

 _I hope we can work something out._

 _\- Astrid._

* * *

As Hiccup's eyes skirt down the paper, Astrid gradually stops struggling away from Cami's arms.

"Look, I don't know how she got that, okay?" Astrid says, her voice strained. "I was just – I wasn't feeling great, and I was letting things go too far and-"

Hiccup doesn't say anything, he just keeps staring straight down at the page in his hands.

"So, do you still not feel the same way, Hiccup?" Cami asks, her voice laced with a kind of mischievous glee.

Hiccup's eyes flicker between Astrid's furious face and Cami's smirk.

"No," he says, after a long pause, his voice oddly high. "I don't."

"Is that so?"

Heather appears out of the crowd of people, sidling up beside Cami and wrapping her arm around the other girl. She shoots a grin down at her, before pulling another piece of paper out of nowhere.

"I found him writing this," Heather says, her eyes glittering. "By the looks of it, he'd been having a lot of trouble with it. He wanted to get it _exactly right_."

* * *

 _Dear Astrid,_

 _I've been trying and trying to put this into words and I keep failing, so I'm just going to do my best right now, and hope that it will be enough. Back in university, I liked you. I more than liked you. I thought that you were one of the most amazing people I had ever met, and that the thought that you would ever like me in the way I liked you, was just out of the question to me. So when we started getting closer, I freaked out, and I distanced myself from you. My Father was always telling me to do better, so I threw myself into my studies. I convinced myself that I didn't like you – that I hated you – and that made you hate me too, and because of that I taught myself to hate you even more._

 _I was wrong, and all I can say is that I am so sorry for this ridiculous feud we've had over the past few years. I feel like it's all been my fault, and if after all of this, you still hold it against me then that's okay. I can learn to live with that._

 _But you have to know, my feelings for you haven't changed since university. If anything, they're stronger. All I want to do is be with you._

 _I love you._

 _-Hiccup._

* * *

Astrid's eyebrows shoot up as her eyes slide down the letter, the last line burning into her brain. She sits there, still for a moment, frozen in space. After a while, she realises that her mouth is hanging open, and all of her efforts go into shutting it.

"Well," she says, pushing her fringe out of her eyes. "This is very… interesting."

Hiccup's hands are in his hair, and before he can stop himself, he's babbling. "Look Astrid, I know that maybe this isn't the right time – I didn't – I don't – I was going to tell you, I just couldn't think – I don't – This isn't-"

"Hiccup," Astrid says, her voice cutting through his stammers.

He stills.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

When they kiss, the room cheers, but neither of them notice. Hiccup freezes the moment Astrid's lips touch his, but soon he's enveloped into her arms, sinking into her touch. They move with each other, Hiccup's arms sliding up Astrid's back, holding her steady. As they kiss, Hiccup recalls the first time they kissed on camera, and remembers how it had felt hard and cold. He remembers how he had felt nothing, and how something must have been wrong with him, because this was perfect, oh, this was everything. Their foreheads touch, and as their lips move away, Hiccup smiles.

 _Finally._


	19. Happy

" _Oh, here will I set up my everlasting rest, and shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last. Arms, take your last embrace. And, lips, O you, the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain to engrossing death._ "

Hiccup leans forward and presses his lips against Astrid's while she lies inert on the altar. It takes all of her concentration not to smile when they make contact, and she finds herself counting to ten in her head to keep herself still and quiet.

" _Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide. Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on the dashing rocks thy seasick, weary bark. Here's to my love!_ "

This might be the saddest scene that she will ever have to shoot, but all Astrid can feel is utter happiness, tingling from her head to her toes.

Hiccup lifts his hand up high to pour the tiny vial of poison down his throat, (actually just water), and drops down beside her.

" _O true apothecary, thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die_."

When he stretches out beside her, he shoots her a quick glance, his eyes sparkling under the lights, and Astrid knows, she just knows that he's feeling the same.

* * *

The news that Astrid and Hiccup no longer hated each other, and were, in fact, dating, spread around the cast, the company and eventually, the general public, faster than a flicker. For once, Astrid is too content to care about what people are speculating about her.

She wakes one morning to dozens of tweets, and it's not until lunch that she realises that not one of them had bothered her. She idly thinks back to a few weeks ago, angsting about how she'd hate to hear people say that they told her so, that she had hated the idea of anyone nosing into to her love life. She thinks back to how she'd thought that there was no one on this Earth that she'd like to date less than Hiccup, the thought frequently making her gag.

When she sees him later, and he pulls her into a hug, dropping a kiss into her hair, she can't help the smile that tugs at her lips.

She's never felt happier to be wrong in her whole life.

* * *

Not so long after Astrid and Hiccup's relationship was revealed to the public, Cami comes out of the proverbial closet, _properly_ , this time. The first thing she does afterwards is go straight to Astrid and wrap her arms around her cousin.

"You did great," Astrid says, holding Cami close. "That took guts, you know."

Cami presses her face into Astrid's neck, and Astrid thinks for a moment that she can hear her whisper "that was scary."

But before she can reply or even acknowledge it, Cami has taken a step back, all trace of vulnerability replaced with her typical cocky smile.

"You're going to be okay, you know that," Astrid says, anyway.

"Hell yeah, I'm going to be okay," Cami says, a glint flashing in her eye. "I'm awesome."

Later, Astrid sees Cami with Heather. When she sees how her cousin looks at the other girl, crinkles beside her eyes appearing as she smiles, she wonders for the second time how she didn't see this coming. She watches Heather wrap an arm around her cousin, pulling them closer together.

 _Yeah_ , Astrid thinks _. I approve_.

* * *

It's not until they've had a few days of bliss that they really talk about everything in their past.

Astrid is sitting on Hiccup's bed, nursing a cup of hot chocolate, content as she watches steam drift up into the air. Hiccup is by her side, his nose in a book. She shoots a glance at him and smiles; he always gets so lost in whatever he's doing, all of his concentration focused onto this one thing. She finds it so endearing.

It doesn't take long, however, for the curiosity to set in. This is the first time that they've had since they kissed that they have time alone, without having to worry about rushing off to some shoot somewhere. With all the idle time, Astrid finds her thoughts travelling back to their university days, and she realises she has so many things she wants to ask.

"Hey, Hiccup?" she says after a while, her voice soft as it breaks through the silence.

"Yeah?"

"Did you really think that I would never like you the way you liked me?"

Hiccup sighs and closes the book, setting it down on the bedside table. He shifts closer to Astrid and rests his head on her shoulder.

"I just… you were this amazing, smart, brilliant person and I was just an awkward guy didn't really have anything going for him, and I just didn't see what someone like you would ever see in me. So, when we became friendly, I got scared, because I knew it was all going to go wrong. So, I pushed you away. I was rude, and stupid, and I tried to make you dislike me, because I thought it was for my own good. And then you actually did stop liking me, and I just thought it had been inevitable," he says, his voice becoming smaller and smaller as he talks.

Astrid stares at him for a moment. Then she punches him in the arm.

It wasn't a strong punch, or a hard one, and in fact, it hadn't even hurt, but Hiccup rubs his arm and gives her an indignant look anyway.

"What?" he grumbles.

"You idiot," Astrid says, pressing her face into his shoulder. "I thought that you were pushing me away because you thought I was beneath you."

Hiccup's eyes widen and he holds his hands up into the air, in some sort of surrender salute. "Astrid, I – _Never_. I never would have thought about you like that."

"I thought that whole thing at the inter-college championships was just proof that you hated me," she says.

Hiccup is halfway between laughing and crying. "Astrid, no. I was being stupid. I was ignoring my feelings so I did and said something really shitty that I should never have said, and I am so, utterly sorry about that."

Astrid gives a half smile. "I know you are, idiot."

Hiccup grins as he rests his head into Astrid's hair. "We've been a couple of fools, haven't we?"

"Not half, Hiccup," Astrid says. "Not half."

* * *

More days pass, and Astrid finds herself more content than she's ever been. Hiccup turns out to be the best boyfriend she's ever had, sweet, kind and as witty as she is. If she could go back in time, she'd tell her former self to sort herself and her feelings out. She'd also probably give younger Hiccup a slap over the head too, for the same reasons. She wishes that a younger Astrid could see herself now. She would have given up the grudge in an instant.

One time, when they are alone and snuggled up together, Hiccup turns and gazes at Astrid, his eyes shining.

"You know," he says. "I don't think there's anyone in the whole world that I like so much as you. Isn't that weird?"

Astrid barely misses a beat before shooting back with, "Not as weird as me liking you back, face-ache."

It's wonderful, and perfect, and Astrid can't understand why she ever thought it wouldn't be.

* * *

It's his turn to lie still and her turn to speak.

" _What's here? A cup, closed in my true love's hand? Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end. O churl, drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after? I will kiss thy lips. Haply some poison yet doth hang on them, to make me die with a restorative._ "

Her hands are twisted in his hair and when she places a kiss to his lips, he swears he feels things bouncing around his stomach, just like he does every time she kisses him.

He still hates this ending. She still hates this ending.

" _Thy lips are warm_ ," Astrid says.

Maybe the ending to this play is stupid. Or maybe the ending is just too misconceived by most readers.

" _Oh happy dagger, this is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die_ ," she says, holding a dagger in her hands.

She plunges the prop into her stomach and drops beside Hiccup. When the director yells cut, and every member of the crew begins to talk again, Astrid's fingers are laced through his, and right then, Hiccup knows, that although Romeo and Juliet were ill-fated, Astrid and Hiccup's ending is far less doomed.

* * *

If you had talked to Astrid when filming began, the last thing she would have expected would be to be told that once everything was done, when the last scene was shot and the director called out "that's a wrap!" and when the air filled with cheers and hugging and tears that the arms she would fling herself into would be Hiccup's.

But that's how it happened, and predicted or not by the time the last scene came, she was holding herself in Hiccup's arms and letting herself cry tears of happiness onto his shoulder.

She would never have expected that, much less that they would be a couple.

Funny how things work out.


	20. Much Ado

A year has passed since the wrap of _Romeo and Juliet_. The movie was a huge success, and Astrid's been basking in the joy of all the new roles that have sprung up in the aftermath. She was in the public eye once more with more and more interviewers prying into her private life, much to her chagrin. Still, nothing much could dampen her spirits, not with her cousin smiling again.

Speaking of her cousin, Cami finally got her big break. After she'd been outed to the world, thousands and thousands of people spoke up in support for her. When she had come out, herself, speaking honestly without any gossip or rumour, she found herself being offered all kind of roles, and her confident self was back again once more. She and Heather are still going strong, and the two of them seem very happy together.

Snotlout and Hiccup are still friends. Snotlout's career had taken a little bit of a hit with a few people dragging him down for outing Cami without her permission. But with the apology that he'd made, it was picking back up again. He'd become more aware of the people around him and learned a little more about what he should and shouldn't say. Hiccup was proud of him for that.

And Hiccup and Astrid?

Hiccup and Astrid are happier than ever.

"Thank God today's over," she exhales loudly as she enters their shared apartment. "If I have to hear one more question about how I said I'd never date you, I'm going to throttle the interviewer."

Hiccup snorts. "You realise it's been a year since we finished filming?"

"That long already?"

She drops herself down onto the sofa where Hiccup's sitting and rests her feet in his lap. He mumbles something in dissent, but she can see his smile.

"It's your fault they keeping asking you those questions," he says. "You _did_ say you were never going to date me. I suppose everyone's just relishing the fact that now you're eating your words. I mean, _how_ many people were speculating that we having sex?"

Astrid throws a pillow at Hiccup. He squeaks in fear, which causes her to curl up with laughter.

"God, can you imagine what if it would have been like if we'd never got our heads out of our asses?" she says, once her laughter subsides.

"It would've made all the press events and interviews fun," he says.

Astrid takes her legs away from Hiccup's lap and curls up at his side, her head resting on his shoulder. "I'm glad we sorted ourselves out," she mumbles.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

He twists around to kiss her.

"You do realise that they're going to be calling us star-crossed lovers for the entirety of our careers?" he says, once they break away.

Astrid crosses her eyes and gags. "I never liked _Romeo and Juliet_ all that much. Thought Romeo was a bit of a drip, really."

Hiccup makes an indignant sound, and gives her a gentle shove.

"Hey, I said Romeo, not you," she says, grinning.

Hiccup scoffs. "Yeah, sure you did," he mutters.

"I always thought we were more like Beatrice and Benedick than anyone else," she says.

Hiccup cocks an eyebrow. "Funny you should say that."

He lifts himself up off the sofa and potters around the kitchen until he finds the envelope he's looking for.

"My agent just sent over a new script that he thinks you and I would be perfect for," he says, handing over the envelope to Astrid.

She takes it from him and pulls out a copy of _Much Ado About Nothing,_ and breaks out into laughter again.

"Are you kidding?"

"Nope," Hiccup grins. "This is our new film, Astrid."

"Amazing," she says, dropping herself back down onto the sofa. "More Shakespeare with _you_."

She wrinkles her nose as she says 'you', but he knows she's joking. Secretly they're both thrilled that they get to work with each other again.

"At least it's not a rom-com," Hiccup says, sitting down beside her and letting Astrid rest her head back on his shoulder.

"Ugh. I think I'd end up killing the director," Astrid mutters.

The two of them laugh, and then silence falls as they both enjoy each other's company.

"Astrid?" Hiccup says.

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I know," Astrid says, hiding a grin behind her hand.

"Hey!" Hiccup says, indignantly, and hits her with the cushion, the two of them engaging in an all-out pillow war, something that happened on a regular basis between the pair.

They both end up sprawled across the sofa, their stomachs hurting from the laughter. When their shoulders stop shaking and they begin to calm down, Astrid crawls up and curls up next to Hiccup once more.

"Hiccup?" Astrid says.

"Yeah?"

"I love you too."

That's how things continue with the two of them, with the playful arguments and fights that have defined their relationship from day one. The two of them are popular, successful and most importantly, happier than they've ever been.

Astrid still isn't a romantic person. She's never going to go gooey-eyed, and she's always going to gag a little when Hiccup says something a little cheesy. There are some lines in some of the scripts she has to read that she'll never be comfortable saying.

But this, this is comfortable. This is Hiccup, sweet, silly Hiccup who she was so utterly wrong about, turning out to be the one person she can't imagine her life without.

When Astrid grows old, becomes calmer but no less headstrong, when she has children of her own that will grow up to be just as strong-willed as she was, she'll look back on the whole thing and laugh. She came into the production determined to hate Hiccup; there was nothing in her mind that could change her opinion of him, nothing that could make her see him in a different light. Then, through a few weird circumstances and one or two convoluted plots, she came out loving him.

And that's really something, Astrid thinks.

 **THE END.**


End file.
